When the debate was adjourned, I was dealing with the poultry population and egg production. I am satisfied that, with the method adopted by the Minister, he will have got over his difficulties in a very short time, and definitely by the end of this year. With regard to the pig industry, it will take the Minister some time to bring the industry back to anything like the condition in which it was some time prior to the emergency, and I believe that some sort of encouragement by way of a loan—I was going to say a free grant, but I confine it to a loan —should be given to farmers, because it will encourage farmers, and especially small farmers, to get back to the foundation of the industry, the keeping of a breeding sow. It may involve anything from £8 to £10, but I suggest that there should be some scheme under which a farmer could borrow that sum and under which the Minister could see to it that the money was used for the purpose for which it was borrowed, for the purpose of keeping a breeding sow.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Agriculture (Resumed).
Mr. Browne
Or if a sow were provided on credit for the farmer?
Mr. Browne
That certainty would be one of the ways, but I do not like it. There was a breeding sow subsidy scheme some years ago and it did not work successfully at all, because the terms were not at all suited to farmers. There were all kinds of regulations and orders, and the farmer did not know when he was going to get the sow; when he got her, he did not know how long he was to keep her; and when he had her for two or three years, he had to dispose of her, so that he did not know exactly where he was. I should like to see some scheme whereby the farmer who is not in a position to put in a breeding sow, would be able to get a loan repayable in three or four years—perhaps four years would be better.
Six litters of bonhams to pay a £10 loan.
Mr. Browne
It would be at least a year or a year and a half before he got any return. By means of a loan the farmer who could not afford to put in a breeding sow would be encouraged to do so. The loan would be repayable in four yearly premiums, starting from the year following the year in which he borrowed the money. In that way, I believe it would be possible to bring back an industry which existed for years, without assistance from anybody and which was capably worked by the small farmers. The Minister is giving freedom to the farmers in the matter of different methods of working and I should like him at the first opportunity to restore the connection which originally existed between the farmers and the pig factories.
If the farmers and the factories get working together as in pre-emergency days, I believe that the pigs will come back, and in a very short time, to the level at which they were five or ten years prior to that emergency. The factories, the machinery and the workers are there. The farmers are the suppliers, and there would be no necessity for the factory, if the farmer were not in pig production. If we could achieve a position in which all the activities connected with pig production were left as between the factory and the farmer, I believe we could achieve success.
I am very glad that the Minister has taken under his Department this matter of field drainage. Field drainage is very important and in practically every part of Ireland, even on the best land, field drainage schemes could be undertaken with advantage. I believe the Minister will make a great success of it, and, from what I can hear, he will have a job in coping with the numbers of applications he will get. He will possibly find that in a very short time these applications will come in as the applications under the farm buildings scheme came in.
They cannot come in too fast or too many.
Mr. Browne
The Minister will get plenty of them, and I feel sure that they will be a great success, because wherever they are started, they are the talk of the area.
Only ten of them have started in the whole of County Mayo.
There is a little trouble in finding men who will work on them.
Schemes to the number of 49 had to be abandoned because there were no men to be found to do them.
The fact is that ten only have been started.
I thought Deputy Browne was referring to farm improvements.
Mr. Browne
No, field drainage schemes.
Anyway, you cannot get the men to work on them.
Mr. Browne
With regard to the farm improvements scheme and the farm buildings scheme, I take it that the farm improvements scheme is being continued and that there is no restriction?
None.
That is not so.
Mr. Browne
It has been suggested by Deputies on the other side that these schemes are not in operation. I take it that they are in operation and any farmer who has a scheme in hands for the past 12 months can continue it.
Certainly. Give them plenty of rope; the more they take, the higher they will hang.
Mr. Browne
The second point I wish to raise in connection with farm building schemes is the erection of poultry houses. I would like the Minister, when concluding, to give us some idea of the position, because in my part of the country and in County Mayo, the people are keenly interested in the erection of poultry houses and they want to get on with the job straight off the reel.
The county committee of agriculture have all the funds at their disposal that they can possibly spend.
Mr. Browne
For the erection of poultry houses?
Yes.
No.
It is between us it is.
Tell us about the circular that was sent out in March.
Mr. Browne
The farmers of this country know when their bread is buttered and they know when their bread is not buttered. Every farmer knows where he stands as regards the future plan and the future price for his cattle, sheep, poultry, eggs, potatoes and everything he can grow on the land. There is a guaranteed price for potatoes of £10 13s. 6d. a ton from October to February, and £11 8s. 6d. a ton after February. That is a better price than the farmer got for potatoes for the last five or six years. The guaranteed market for potatoes will help the farmer to produce and raise pigs. If the farmer saw a danger of not having a market for potatoes, he might go out of potato growing. He now has a market for potatoes in bulk and if he does not wish to take advantage of that, he can go into pig production. Therefore, the guaranteed market for the potato crop is one of the greatest things the Minister has done.
I want to join with other Deputies from this side of the House in congratulating the Minister on the terms of his agreement and on the plan. He has given new hope to the farmer and, as far as I can see, every farmer will make up his mind as to what he will do and the Minister can rest assured that they are going to take full advantage of the schemes he has put before them.
The Minister has changed his mind so often in connection with matters affecting agricultural policy that it is difficult to know to what he is going to stick. The last speaker suggested that the arrival of the Minister in his present Department meant new life and hope for the farmers. It certainly means new life and hope for the ranchers because, if there is one thing that is consistent in an otherwise inconsistent Minister it is his policy to make this country a heaven for ranchers and to reverse the whole economy of this State so that we will be changed from our former position into a cattle ranch for the production of cattle for the British market at the British price. That is not only my view of the Minister's policy. It appears to me that all his life, or at least as long as he has been in this House, the Minister has persistently and continually thrown slurs at and discouraged tillage in this country.
He suggested to Deputy Allen to-day that he did not make the remarks he was alleged to have made about people who use horses on their land for the purpose of tillage, but it is on the record of this House, on the debate on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture in 1944, that he poured scorn on the holding of ploughing matches throughout the country and he entertained us by painting a picture of, as he said, country yokels plodding after horses at ploughing matches to the applause of the former Minister for Agriculture, and he suggested—it is on the record of this House—that you might just as well have a competition between nail makers in this country in producing hand-made nails as to have ploughing competitions. I do not know how that could be interpreted other than as a suggestion that it was absurd for the farmers of our country to till or to have horses, that it was absurd to endeavour to encourage the healthy competition that we had throughout the ploughing matches that were held over the last number of years.
With horses.
With horses. The Minister evidently sneers at horses, which is a very strange view in a man who should be familiar with the West of Ireland. Does he imagine that we can have ten-ton tractors driving across the bogs of Mayo or Roscommon or Galway or any of the western counties?
Oh, no. Suitable tractors.
That is the Minister's view. I do not mind the Minister's flights of imagination about ploughing matches, but what I do mind is the fact that he has always consistently opposed any tillage policy in this country and every public utterance of his, even since he became Minister, has gone further in that direction. He has resurrected his old slogans about its being a "cod" to grow wheat and a "cod" to set beet and he has set out on this campaign of turning this country into a ranch to supply cattle to Britain, culminating in the recent trade agreement that has got a certain amount of publicity recently. Evidently outside this country the present Minister for Agriculture is also regarded as a rancher's advocate and presumably it is the policy both of the Minister and of the Government of which he is a member.
A publication that is generally rather impartial for a British newspaper gives an account of the Minister's visit to the other side in connection with the recent trade agreement. In the issue of News Review for June 24th they say:—
"Irishmen are basically either farmers or ranchers, tillers or cattleraisers, and as such are interested in raising wheat and farm produce for home consumption or beef and dairy produce for export. The farmers are smallholders, not particular about a connection with Britain, but the ranchers have great tracts of grazing land and look on Britain as a customer with whom they should have the closest ties.
Under 15 years of Eamon de Valera's rule, the farmers were on top. Wheat, beet and potatoes were the basis of Éire's agricultural economy, and the cattle-ranchers had lean years. But with John Costello as Prime Minister, and James Matthew Dillon as Minister for Agriculture, the ranchers are coming back into their own."
They proceeded to say that last week an Irish delegation arrived in London on behalf of the ranchers of this country.
You know who publishes News Review?
From the terms of the trade agreement, perhaps it is unnecessary——
You know who publishes News Review?
——to stress that it was on behalf of the ranchers of this country that the Minister went over.
You know who publishes News Review?
Order.
The Communist Party in Great Britain.
The Minister should wave his hat in applause of News Review because News Review gives a little bit further down in connection with the Minister himself.
I want no praise from them.
The article says of the Minister:—
"At war's outbreak he was the only member of the Dáil to oppose openly Mr. de Valera's neutrality policy, and come out wholeheartedly on the side of Britain."
They also proceed to state in the same article:—
"If Mr. Dillon can come to terms with Britain, increased imports of eggs, bacon and beef should lead to the progressive raising of the ration-level, the doubling of the meat ration within two years, and its abolition by 1953."
I think the Minister went so far as to announce that when he was over there to the Pressmen there——
You think quite wrong.
"Unless, of course, the tables are turned in a future Irish election and the farmers get the ranchers on the run again."
The ranchers are evidently firmly entrenched behind the present Minister for Agriculture.
That language comes trippingly to the Deputy's tongue.
And outside people take the view that we are now compelled to take, that the Minister's sole concern is with the ranchers of this country. Wheat growing and beet growing, according to the Minister, as a policy are a "cod" and we must get back by relying solely on the amount of cattle we will export to Britain, and we are tied now under this trade agreement hand and foot to give our produce to that one market. I wonder does the Minister realise the position that he has walked the country into on this agreement. I do not want to go into it in detail at this stage, but there was never a time when a Minister for Agriculture went to make a bargain on the other side and had a greater opportunity of ensuring the agricultural future of this country, by insisting that the type of economy that suits us be carried out by them.
The Minister talks about an unlimited market. Of course, there is, through the British people being half starved and having been so for some time. They are prepared to take our eggs, beef, butter and bacon, and anything else we can give them to raise their ration. It is equally true that the same is the position all across Europe. The Minister is well aware that Europe was denuded of cattle during the war years. This is the time when the Minister— if he had this idea in mind that we should kill as many of our own cattle as we possibly could—should have insisted on getting a greater quota of canned meat into the British market.
I did; I doubled the quota.
The Minister got 10,000 tons. That was only going back to the status quo the year before last, when the quota was 10,000 tons.
The Party opposite lost it and I got it back.
The amount of the quota was reduced—due, in the main, through the scarcity of tin for canning as the Minister knows. The position is now that the Minister has got 10,000 tons. He had an opportunity, now that they want our stuff, and are crying out for it, of endeavouring to break that Birkenhead ring that, irrespective of what Government is in office, will try to insist on our live stock going out on the hoof. He had an opportunity of getting them to this position of increasing our volume of exports of meat in tins and thereby creating employment here and securing the various offals that would be useful for other industries as well as the hides that would give further employment.
There is an unlimited market for tinned meat.
If the Minister would keep his mouth shut we would get on a little quicker. Some people fill up so much with their own importance that they swell and swell and ultimately, like the frog in the fable, they burst; and I am expecting the explosion from the Minister at any moment.
You can ship all the canned meat you wish.
The Minister may keep quiet until I say what I have to say. There never was a position when we here, or our representatives for this State, could more favourably insist on getting an agreement between this country and Britain which would be more suitable to our economy than there is at present. They were never in so much need of our produce as they are at present. If the Minister had an eye on the future he had an opportunity—himself and his colleagues—on this occasion to increase the quota of canned meat we could send out.
There is no quota.
The Minister was busier endeavouring to ensure that they would get people cheaper food from this country than he was on the question of our economy.
On a point of order, may I direct the Deputy's attention to the fact that there is no quota or restriction of any sort, kind or description on the export of canned meat? He may send 10,000,000 tons, if he wishes to.
That is not a point of order.
The Deputy is going on saying there is, when there is not.
It is not a point of order, obviously.
The Minister is well aware that his own agreement sets out the figure of 10,000 tons that we are to sell them. That is the amount we are entitled to give them. The Minister knows that the amount of tin we will get to produce the tins to send out that 10,000 tons comes from there. The Minister knows we are rationed in that way, that unless we get the tins we cannot send out the canned meat. The Minister need not try to hoodwink the House by suggesting that we have an unlimited market for canned meat. It is in the Minister's agreement, as far as the announcements in the Press go, that 10,000 tons is the quota we have there. The Minister, when replying, will presumably get an opportunity to explain that away, if he can.
I should not, because it is not in order, but I will.
Our whole economy has been put back to the position it was in away back in 1929, 1930 and 1931. The Continental buyers are cut out of our market and we are forced, whether we like it or not, to send our stuff to the British market. That is all right at the moment. In addition, the Minister has created this new business of a third grade that was unknown before his signing the agreement.
Are we discussing the trade agreement or not?
The trade agreement is not to be discussed, except in so far as it affects agricultural produce.
On a point of order, in the Minister's opening statement here, he referred to the trade agreement and what it was going to do for this country. There were certain heads of that agreement published. The question of meat prices was published in detail in last Saturday's daily papers.
That is right, Sir.
Would the Deputy not be in order in referring to a matter that is public property, the matter of meat prices?
It is not right for me to say how far a Deputy can go, as it was decided that the agreement as such was not open for discussion. The Deputy went a considerable distance.
I think you said a moment ago that it was not open for discussion except in so far as it affected agricultural policy.
That is as far as I want to go in discussing it.
The Minister did not go very far in discussing it at the outset.
Surely, I am entitled to assert that it has always been the position, as far as the relationships between this country or any other country and Britain are concerned, that the British always bought in the cheapest market available to them. They are buying from us now, not because they are "an old and valued customer", as the Minister would like to describe them, but because they can get the stuff here. That is the only reason. It is not for any love of us that the British are taking our stuff, whatever love may be manifested on the Minister's behalf in presenting our stuff to Britain cheaper than he is prepared to give it anywhere else. I never heard of a countryman going to a fair and proclaiming to the world that he was prepared to sell his cow to the lowest bidder and not to the highest bidder. The Minister, before going across, thought fit to do that. He has such a great regard for the people across the water that he would prefer to sell the stuff more cheaply to them than he would to any other country.
The day will come when the country will seriously regret the Minister's view. It is true that, for the next four years, we can anticipate world shortages for the articles we are able to produce and export as agricultural produce, but immediately that the British can get stuff cheaper elsewhere they will do with us the same as they always did. We will have either to sell our surplus produce to them at depressed prices or they will not take anything from us. According to the Minister and the policy he is adopting and pursuing, we will now be committed to changing our whole economy back again into that one single channel. That would leave us solely dependent on the whim of any British Minister for Agriculture. It would put us back in the position that, immediately, for instance, the Dutch were able to produce cheaper eggs our prices would be depressed as they always have been. I do not intend to go into egg prices—that question was discussed by a number of other Deputies— except to say this, that nobody should imagine that on this question of poultry we are the only people going in for intensive egg production. The scheme that is being fostered by the Minister in connection with poultry and egg production in the country comes direct from the Dutch, and it is correct, I think, to say that the British are financing the Dutch to a larger extent than they are financing this country.
Do not blame me for that. Deputy Smith made that agreement.
I do not mind who made it. I would ask the Minister to try and contain himself until I have finished. What I was saying was that the same poultry and egg scheme is being fostered by the British in those other countries, and that immediately they can get cheaper eggs and a sufficient quantity of them from those other countries they will take them. Immediately that position arises, irrespective of our production here, the British will stop buying our eggs if they find they are dearer than the eggs they can get from other countries. I want to point out to the House the great danger there is of committing the country to a long-term policy of that kind. It would put us back into the position in which we would have to rely solely on one buyer and that buyer could inflate or deflate prices at his whim as it suited his book to do so.
The question of dairy cows has been dealt with at some length by other speakers. I want to say that dairy herds, particularly in the vicinity of country towns, are disappearing. The question of milk supplies to country towns is becoming a headache for the people who live in them. I think one of the great difficulties is that of getting agricultural labour. I am not dealing now so much with the creamery areas because milk production in those areas is made easy for the producers. They leave their milk in a churn at the gate and it is collected from them by the creamery. That type of man can produce when it suits him. The cows give a good supply of milk during the summer season when they are being grass fed. At the approach of winter he can sell off his surplus cows and even if he does it will not interfere very much with the kind of economy he practises.
The ordinary dairy farmer who is supplying milk to the country towns cannot do that. He has to maintain his customers the whole year round. No matter what it may cost him, he has to keep up his supply during the winter months. That may involve him in great loss, because the price that he is getting for his milk during the winter period may not be sufficient to cover his outgoings. It is also true to say that that type of man has to employ agricultural workers to milk his cows and to keep them the whole year round. He has to pay them well because the conditions under which they work are altogether different from those that prevail in the creamery areas. The men have to be out at 6 o'clock in the morning to milk the cows so that they may be able to leave on their delivery rounds at 8 o'clock.
There is another big difficulty which this type of milk producer is faced with. If his cows go dry during the winter months, when prices are at their maximum, he has to replace them by fresh milkers, irrespective of price, because if he fails to do so he is going to lose his customers. Therefore, during the months of November, December and January, when milch cows fetch the highest price, this man has to buy them irrespective of what the price may be. All these things contribute to increase his costings. The result of all that has been that it is steadily but surely driving those people out of milk production. That position is quite apparent in various country towns, and from what I have heard, the situation is becoming more or less universal.
I think that situation is dangerous and that it is a bad sign for agriculture as a whole, because it is unnecessary for me to stress how much the dairy farmer is the keystone in the agricultural fabric of the State. A case has been made for increasing the price to the dairy farmers who sell their milk to the creameries. I think that is a case that should be listened to. As I have said, I do not propose to deal with the creamery side of this question, but I do say that a very good case can be made for the man who is supplying milk to country towns because his costings are certainly far more, and his difficulties far greater, than those of the ordinary dairy farmer.
It is true to say that farming as a whole is an expert job. I am one of those who believe that, if possible, we should have more agricultural colleges than we have. We should have some method whereby the farmer's son who intends to remain on the land should be technically trained and fitted for that calling. I think it is agreed by most observers that what is mainly responsible for the success of our competitors from Holland and Denmark is that 90 per cent. of their young people who attend agricultural schools or colleges go back to the land. I do not know how far it would be possible, in the case of our rural schools, to give the curriculum not only an agricultural bias, but to arrange for the holding of regular courses in each parish each year so as to keep the young men, who intend to make a living from agriculture on their fathers' holdings, abreast of the different developments in agriculture.
I am not so much concerned with the larger agricultural colleges, because, invariably the people who attend them and who, ultimately, take a degree in agriculture, do not intend to go back to the land. They intend to make their livelihood either as teachers or in some other job away from the land. I think the Minister should direct his attention to the provision of educational facilities in agriculture for our young people who intend to live on the land and to make farming their vocation in life. These are the people that I am principally interested in. I do not know how far it may be possible for the Minister to provide for them the facilities which I suggest.
I notice that recently the Minister's Department sent out a circular in connection with the propagation of grass seeds. I think that is an idea that could only have originated in the mind of the present Minister for Agriculture. We are solemnly asked in the County Mayo to produce these experimental grass seeds on the mental hospital farm tended by the lunatics resident in the mental hospital, and I presume that the other counties throughout the country got the same request. The Minister should be aware that the lands attached to mental institutions throughout the country are made use of by the authorities from the point of view of occupational therapy for the patients and the crops produced on these lands are produced by patients who may one day work on them and pull them up the next unless they are carefully watched.
Of all the people to ask to propagate grass seeds, to ask unfortunate mental patients is the most extraordinary thing that I or anybody else has ever heard. We had this request from the Minister. Whether he has himself gone off the rails on this question of grass or not I do not know, but it is an extraordinary thing to ask us to carry out grass experiments in a mental hospital.
If the Deputy has finished jeering at people of unsound mind we might pass to another topic. This is not a very edifying spectacle.
The Minister is not the best judge of what is or is not an edifying spectacle. I have listened to him for a long period and if he would forget for a moment that he is James Dillon and act as Minister for Agriculture we could get on more peacefully in this House.
One matter I would like to dwell on briefly is the provision of veterinary services, particularly in congested areas. I would like to point out to this House that the practice and economy of our country has mostly developed on the provision of stores for farmers up the country by the smallholders of the congested districts. It is true that these people may not be able economically to avail of veterinary assistance when they require it, but it is equally true that not alone thousands but millions of pounds are lost through disease in our live-stock industry.
I suggest that the Minister should make a start by providing a veterinary service free in the congested areas to ensure that the people would produce good stores, because stores are what they specialise in as far as cattle are concerned and it would combat some of the diseases that we get in these areas. Such a scheme would, I think, pay for itself in a short time and it would be money well spent. I have stated in this House on another Estimate that something could perhaps be done by this Minister for the free tuberculin testing of dairy cattle. Until the Minister does that and gives an enhanced price for cows reported to be suffering from tuberculosis in order to get them destroyed, he will not achieve what we all want to achieve, the stoppage of the spread of bovine tuberculosis in our dairy herds.
I want to nail one of the falsehoods which was spread widely by the Minister when he was an opposition Deputy in connection with the bacon industry. I listened very long and very patiently to the Minister over a number of years stating from these benches that the Fianna Fáil Government had killed the bacon industry. A very short time before the Minister came into office we heard him holding forth in this House and outside it, telling all and sundry how the then Government had destroyed the pig and bacon industry. The Minister, of course, knew at that time that it was untrue, and the Minister was not a fortnight in office when I listened to him state at a consultative meeting of the Agricultural Advisory Body that it was solely a question of feeding stuffs. The Minister was well aware of that——
The Deputy has recently become a director of a bacon company. Is not that so?
——but he wanted to put over for his own political purposes that the cause was something that should be attributed to the Government of the day. Now, at all events, the Minister admits that it is a question of feeding stuffs and of cheap feeding stuffs. We all know that you can get the pig population back and increase production if you can get feeding stuffs and more and cheaper maize than we got pre-war. The number of pigs will increase in proportion to the price and availability of the maize that the Minister will be able to get. I do not know if he has stated so far the amount of maize he will be able to get and the prices at which it will be available, but it is by all these factors that an increased pig population can be achieved.
The Minister, with a great blare of publicity, proceeded to suggest to all and sundry that he would put rashers in the shops and make them available for every housewife in the country.
That is wholly untrue.
The figures are very disappointing from the Minister's point of view. The number of pigs that came into the factories in the week ending 5th July, 1947, was 4,089 and in the week ending the 3rd of July of this year the number of 3,574, practically 500 down on last year. If we take the 27 weeks ended 3rd July, 1948, the number of pigs delivered to the factories in that period, roughly six months, was 102,185 and the number in the period ending 5th July, 1947, 122,008. Comparing the two sixmonth periods, we find that the number of pigs delivered to the factories is 20,000 down on last year's number.
Will the Deputy say what is the average age of a pig delivered at the factory?
The Deputy would not know a pig if he saw one, but in the West of Ireland the pigs go into the factories at five or six months.
Exactly. The Minister has not been in office six months yet.
The Minister has been in office since February, and I am comparing the figures, if the Deputy can understand them, of the number of pigs delivered to the factories last year and this year. The pigs delivered to the factories these last six months would be the result of the sow services of the last six months of 1947. We understood from the Minister with all his thunder and fury that he would produce the bacon.
If we are to go into that indelicate statistic, I think I could impress the Deputy.
The Minister certainly has not produced the bacon so far. The Minister, of course, knew that he will not get bacon in this country until feeding stuffs are available and at a cheap rate. With all the waving of his flags about this matter has he set about endeavouring to procure feeding stuffs? I think that would probably go a long way to make a better attempt at solving the difficulties of the bacon shortage. The Minister further stated that the curers had thousands of tons of bacon in cold store.
And I dug it out.
That is the most extraordinary statement we ever heard from any Minister, because the Minister knew from his own officials the amount of bacon in cold store. There could not be one ounce of bacon in cold store without the Pigs and Bacon Commission knowing about it. The commission undoubtedly had to inform the Minister and he had these figures available to him. But, knowing that any bacon in cold store was known to be there officially—I should say that the small quantity of bacon in cold store was only there for the gammon and shoulder trade and the Minister was well aware of that— he tried deliberately to create the impression that the bacon curers had an enormous quantity of bacon hidden away in cold store in anticipation of some removal of controls. Everybody knows that the price that had to be paid for pigs was exorbitant and that the curers were running their business uneconomically. Everybody knows that the pigs were so scarce we had this competition for them between the different curers.
Notwithstanding that the bacon curers had to pay such high prices and were turning these pigs into bacon and getting shut of them as fast as they could, they could not meet the huge demand for bacon throughout the country. If, for some extraordinary reason known only to the Minister, bacon curers had hidden away thousands of tons of bacon, where is that bacon now? Why did not the Minister get these thousands of tons of bacon, if they were there, on the shop counters?
I did.
How is it that since the Minister started his ramp bacon is scarcer than ever before in the shops? The Minister deliberately tried to create the impression that by some underhand method bacon was hidden away in some illegal manner.
It was.
The Minister should know that there was no bacon hidden away illegally, because the Pigs and Bacon Commission were aware of what was in cold store. Of course it was good publicity for the Minister while it lasted. The Minister purports to be a lover of Great Britain, and, more particularly, to have a soft spot for the axe. He should ponder on the maxim that deeds speak louder than words. When he gets the bacon into the shops it will be time enough for him to start waving the applause flags and get encomiums from the newspapers which are supporting him. I do not know how far the Minister is responsible for the prices fixed for the butchers. Possibly the Minister for Industry and Commerce has an equal responsibility, if not the greater responsibility, for that. I do not want to dwell upon it except to say——
That racket is over. Do not worry any more about it.
The Minister is so fond of calling people racketeers that the mere fact of the Minister saying that they are racketeers does not cut a lot of ice with me. Those who drafted the Emergency Powers Order which controls the prices charged by the butchers seem to have lost sight of a couple of things. There was an Order made last November that lamb should be sold at the same price as mutton.
That is a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
The Minister for Agriculture has this to do with it, that there was no variation made in that Order since last November, the result being that spring lamb had to be sold this year at the same price as mutton. That is an oversight on somebody's part. That is one of the grievances of the butchers whom the Minister referred to in this House as racketeers. Like every other section of the community, the butchers are entitled to have their side of the case heard.
The Estimate of the Minister for Industry and Commerce will be discussed very shortly.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce is so busy with inter-Party affairs that he cannot receive these people.
The Deputy must not discuss the Minister for Industry and Commerce on this Vote. This is a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. That has been ruled.
Very well. We shall have an opportunity of dealing with this matter at greater length when the Estimate for the Minister for Industry and Commerce comes before the House.
I will lay you 6 to 4 that you will not take it.
The Minister is very good at making bets. I ask him to wait and see. He will find that when the Minister for Industry and Commerce comes along with his Estimate I shall deal with the question of the butchers. I want to make a suggestion in connection with a sum of money held up by the Pigs and Bacon Commission for some time. I refer to the Stabilisation Fund, which was paid in by the curers to the Pigs and Bacon Commission. It is still held by that commission and I understand nobody can get it. So far as I remember, it was in the region of £20,000 and, with the accumulation of interest, it should now be in the region of £34,000 or £35,000. If the Minister is going to accept the suggestion of some Deputies as to the provision of a sow scheme to be administered by the committees of agriculture, there is a sum of money which could well be devoted to that purpose. It was paid in for the purpose of price stabilisation, but I am sure the curers would be agreeable to having it ploughed back into the industry. As it could not be used now for the purpose for which it was originally subscribed, if we go according to the doctrine cy pres, it could be used for a similar purpose, and the best purpose I can suggest for its use would be some scheme administered by the county committees of agriculture to be financed out of this particular fund.
If we suggest any scheme like that to the Minister, or to any Minister of the present Government, we come up against the economy axe. The Minister is not prepared to find money to finance them. I listened to a number of Deputies complaining about the holding up of different schemes for which the Minister is responsible. They need not have wasted their time referring to these schemes because the reason for the hold up is quite apparent. They have only to turn to a statement made by the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech when he stated, as reported in column 1040 of the Official Report of 4th May:—
"I am also taking account of further reductions in expenditure totalling £1,122,000, which I am closely pursuing and confidently expect to capture, but of which it would be premature to give particulars until they are safely in the net."
That £1,122,000 has been kept in the background. But, if any Deputies want to know the reason why the schemes that were in operation under the former Minister for Agriculture are being held up, such as the poultry houses scheme, the farm improvements scheme, etc., I suggest to them to consider these sinister words of the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Agriculture is carrying out his part of the Coalition bargain. He is going to do his own share in finding this £1,122,000 for the Minister for Finance. That is the explanation in connection with this Estimate and every other Estimate for the dilly-dallying, for the putting off, for the sabotaging of these schemes for which our farmers are crying out.
Let those people sitting on the benches opposite who talk about continuing self-sufficiency examine their consciences when they come to vote with the present Minister for Agriculture on this Vote when it is referred back. Let them examine the condition which existed in this country when Fianna Fáil were in office and consider the outlook of the Fine Gael Party which is expressed by their old henchman, Deputy James Dillon, who now occupies the position of Minister for Agriculture. They have an opportunity now of undoing the harm that has been done. They have their opportunity on the Vote for this Estimate to show that they do not want to turn this country into a cattle ranch for Britain. If they do not accept it the responsibility will be on their shoulders and they will not get out of it by shedding crocodile tears down the country when they find we are back again, lock, stock and barrel, inside the four walls of British economy to produce all our exports for the one market at whatever price the British choose to pay us.
During the four days this Estimate has been under discussion criticisms, proposals and suggestions have been directed from every angle of the House for the purpose of improving agriculture in this country. Fortified by all that information the Minister will, no doubt, have a very busy time during the coming year coordinating them. I should like to reiterate some of the points which have already been made by other Deputies.
Deputy B. Maguire mentioned that the Department of Agriculture has not been helpful to the poorer areas in the country. It can be said with equal truth that it has not been helpful in areas where the land is richer. For that reason I welcome the optimism of the Minister in that he feels competent to depart from compulsory co-operation on the part of the farmers. I think that, with certain protective methods, that voluntary effort will be justified. To make agriculture really successful it must be made popular and there is no doubt that it is not as popular as it ought to be. Deputy Kyne, in his valuable contribution to the debate this morning, referred to the popularising of agriculture. The workers in the agricultural industry must be made more prosperous and more contented. They should be enabled to secure a decent livelihood in the country rather than have their eyes on the cities and towns. That can be achieved by giving them better conditions of employment and reasonable remuneration. The farmer must be prosperous and the agricultural labourer must be prosperous. If that is done, agriculture will be prosperous and popular.
After so many years of necessary compulsion as a result of the emergency farmers are now being allowed to utilise their land in whatever way they think it is most suitable to utilise it. Compulsion was understandable during the emergency period, but in normal times it would be an uneconomic and an unsound policy. The farmers will now have an opportunity of going back to the proper utilisation of their land. Surely a man who was born on a holding, which was worked by his father before him, knows the best use to which it can be put. The patriotism of the farmers is beyond all doubt. Canon Sheehan said that the farmers' patriotism did not extend beyond the boundary wall, but conditions were different then, and during the emergency tributes were paid from all sides to the spirit of co-operation of the farmers. Patriotism and not compulsion was the mainspring of their magnificent co-operation.
I look forward to the time when economic prices will be paid for the various types of agricultural produce. I look forward to the time when the man who is now producing wheat will be enabled to return to the production of milk. I believe they will appreciate that. I think, however, that some steps should be taken to prevent a recurrence of what happened before ever the emergency took place. I refer to the large landowners who did not even till sufficient for their own requirements. I had the sad experience of seeing in the City of Limerick owners of the richest land buying agricultural produce in competition with city workers and traders. That is the other extreme. I hope that steps will be taken to ensure that the man who has land will shoulder his responsibilities in that connection. I believe that farmers, after years of compulsory tillage, will shoulder their responsibilities without compulsion and in that way the dreadful fear that was expressed in this House yesterday will not materialise. There will be no necessity, either, for the inspector to pay visits as frequently as heretofore if the farmers get down to their jobs and they will do so if they are guaranteed a remunerative price for their produce.
I was amazed by the statement made by Deputy Moran in regard to the illegal curing of bacon. He asked the Minister if he really believed, as he was asking the public to believe, that illegal practices were taking place in regard to the curing of bacon.
In factories.
It is amazing how innocent we can be when we want to. Deputy Moran's mind must have been in Mars or somewhere else when he asked that question. Everybody in the country knows that not alone has the pig population decreased but that many of the pigs that should be available never reach the bacon factories. I know for a fact that at a particular fair 60 per cent. of the pigs disappeared—the other 40 per cent. reached the curers. Where the 60 per cent. disappeared to remains to be seen. The carcases of the 40 per cent. were inspected by inspectors to ensure that they were free from tuberculosis and any other infection. The 60 per cent. were killed unseen and there is no doubt that they were able to command any price. Deputy Moran says that the Minister is wrong in suggesting that there is any such thing as illegal curing of bacon. The few prosecutions that give the lie to that are infinitesimal in comparison to the extent of the racket which is going on not alone in Dublin but throughout the length and breadth of the country. I want to advert to a particular point of local interest. In a statement made by the Minister recently, he indicated his intention of dispersing in the near future some of the holdings and assets of the Dairy Disposal Company to certain co-operative creamery institutions. I have no quarrel with that. I think the Minister is merely reverting to the original intention for which the board was set up to put certain creameries on an economic basis and hand them back to the farmers to work as a going concern. In the absence of a more detailed statement of his intentions, a certain amount of anxiety and alarm has been created in the minds of the employees of a very considerable industry in Limerick, the condensed milk company and toffee factory. The employees are a bit scared as to whether they are going to be dispersed in common with the other interests of the board.
I can assure the Deputy not one single one of them need be in the slightest degree apprehensive about his job.
I am glad to hear that. This is a very old industry and one of the biggest in the City of Limerick. When it first came into being, it was operated both as a dairying concern and condensed milk. Now it is only dealing with condensed milk and it is dependent for its supply on Tipperary and Knocklong and Drumree. It is a co-ordinated unit and it is essential that the industry should be kept alive for the benefit of Limerick. I am glad to have the Minister's assurances in that respect.
Deputy O'Grady closed his speech to-day by a quotation from, I think, Stewart Mills to the effect that "every country gets the Government it deserves." He piously asked, "What has this country done to deserve its present Government?" I can only suggest that God and the people, having recognised the fact that we had endured 16 years of Fianna Fáil, thought the country richly deserved this, or even a better, Government.
I feel a sense of confidence in rising to speak on this Estimate, because, as most people in the country know, in spite of the statements made by members of the inter-Party Government that the last Government was thrown out by the farmers of the country, a very brief study of the figures at the election will reveal that, however we suffered defeat by a very small margin, it was not in the farming areas. It is quite evident that we have a natural right to ask the Minister to pursue what we believe to be the best aspects of Fianna Fáil policy because, as I have said, the farmers indicated in no slight degree their generous support of that Government.
I believe that the Minister for Agriculture has a better opportunity of enabling production to be increased than any Minister for Agriculture in the history of this country. For the first time he will have more normal conditions in which to improve production than have ever been the case before. We went through the fight for independence followed by the civil war. No Minister for Agriculture, Republican or Free State, could have been expected to launch a large-scale scheme of agricultural development at that time. No sooner were these events terminated, than agricultural prices the world over began to fall and, whatever the shortcomings of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government were, it would have required more than the courage they showed to start a large-scale development of agriculture at a time when prices were falling year by year. In the middle of that depression there began the economic war and the permanent and long-term policy of the Fianna Fáil Government was to a considerable degree twisted by necessity owing to the fact that the economic war had to be fought and the economic war had to be won. Many items of that policy were either not put sufficiently into operation or had to be modified to suit the circumstances of the time. No sooner was the economic war over than the second world war began and brought with it shortages of machinery, materials and fertilisers. Now if the Russians behave themselves, the Minister for Agriculture has no political war to fight, no world war to fight, and he anticipates an increase in supplies of agricultural machinery. He anticipates greater supplies of fertilisers arising from the resumption of more normal trade conditions between this and other countries. There is no major political dispute in this country in which the farmers have to take the front line trenches, as they did for so many years. I think that the Minister will honestly admit that he has a chance given to no other Minister to bring about an increase in agricultural production. He will not mind my suggesting that his modesty in prophesying a great increase in agricultural production in so far as he might be responsible for it is not noteworthy. The Minister is prone to make ebullient statements, and certainly sometimes we find it difficult to understand his policy when outlined at after-dinner speeches and when given to the House in connection with his Estimate. I agree with Deputy Dr. Ryan that, bearing in mind we have inadequate information, the Minister for Agriculture in many ways is following Fianna Fáil policy and expanding Fianna Fáil policy. We doubt his views about tillage and about the future of the dairying industry, because he has not made them sufficiently clear. But it is quite evident that he has adopted the vast majority of the plans we had in operation when the Government fell. We ask the Minister to relate his statement on the close of this Estimate to some of the wilder observations he made in the course of a number of public functions. I failed to understand them. To give an example, the Minister for Agriculture showed a contempt for the horse in one of his after-dinner speeches as a means of transport——
Of traction.
——on the occasion of one association dinner while, at the same time, he indicated that farming to some considerable degree was to be mechanised. I think he made an extreme statement. Granted there must be a great deal of mechanisation of farming, I think at the same time he was going beyond reason in what he said in regard to that matter.
I have noted one thing. Once again we find that all the new Clann na Poblachta policy is to be put in abeyance. I listened with eagerness to hear whether any of the high-sounding and grandiose promises made by that Party were going to be implemented by the Minister. I find that that Party in return for some nebulous concession —I know now what it is—have sacrificed every single one of their special policies with which they so successfully bribed the farming electorate. We did not hear of the £130,000,000 free of interest to the farmers; we did not hear of the vast supply of absolutely free artificial manures. We waited, in vain, to hear the Minister recommend that farms in this country be not greater than 50 acres and that all holdings in excess of 50 acres be divided up among the population. We find that the Minister is not faced with the problem of reducing the cost of living by 30 per cent. by means of subsidies on agricultural produce. We find that he is not faced with the impossible task of raising agricultural prices, according to Clann na Poblachta standards, and, at the same time, seeing the food produced in this country sold at a 30 per cent. discount on the market by means of subsidies which at current prices would cost no less than £50,000,000 per year.
And so we find that, once again, a great deal more of this strange new policy is put in abeyance, and, listening to the Minister, it seems to me as though it is more or less permanently in abeyance. I heard Deputy McQuillan make a foolish apologia for the new Party. He said:—
"We are waiting and watching the new Minister, and if he can succeed in arresting the flight from the land, we will be prepared to abide by his decisions."
If the flight from the land continues, then we may anticipate a resumption of our freedom in order that our special policies can be put into operation. It is true that Party succeeded in gaining very few seats in the country. Maybe it was that the farmers did not believe what they were told and did not believe the promises would be fulfilled.
We have also noted in this debate a refreshing absence of comment on the way of life in New Zealand. Apparently members of the new Party and of the Labour Party have discovered, since the election, that to compare agricultural conditions in an under-populated country, where the grass in winter is almost as green as in summer and where 1,700,000 people occupy a land four times the size of ours, is neither judicious nor sensible.
I should like to ask the Minister what he now believes to be the proper policy in regard to sugar-beet growing. We heard much condemnation from him in the past and I should like to ask him whether he favours beet as the future long-term policy, particularly in regard to the necessity of maintaining security measures. As has been indicated in previous Estimates, the Government have done little to prepare this country for a possible war. The present inter-Party Government are probably the only Government that are not taking measures to protect our interests should the tragedy of a war be our lot. Does the Minister regard the preservation of the beet factories, even if he does not believe in growing beet, as wise from the standpoint of security if not from the standpoint of bringing an income to the farmer?
He gave facts in regard to agricultural production, but in order to gain a political point he did not go far enough in describing agricultural production in this country over the past 25 years. The volume of agricultural production and the population of our live stock have been virtually stagnant since 1912. The percentage of alteration in the density of live stock or in the volume of production has not been notable. Whether prices have collapsed or increased the figures have remained virtually the same. Even during the economic war, when the farmers suffered severely, they suffered from low prices but at the same time it can be noted that the actual volume of their production remained very stable. The character of production changed in regard to certain classes. There was an increase of tillage of about 5 per cent. Although production suffered modification and there were a number of other adverse repercussions, the actual volume of production did not vary very considerably. I do not know whether the Minister mentioned that during the war the total of our live stock actually increased.
I did.
The number of cattle increased, but the number of sheep decreased steadily.
For the purpose of correcting Deputy Dr. Ryan, I said they went down.
In connection with our sheep population, has the Minister noted the change in other countries and does he consider that Fianna Fáil is responsible for the decline in the production of sheep? Does he consider that the inevitable compulsory tillage, with the difficulties affecting sheep arising from it, contributed in not a large measure to the reduction of the sheep population?
The Minister has indicated his policy. A very large amount of it is Fianna Fáil. In connection with some other items we still await the Minister's answer and we also await his ultimate beliefs. We presume the Minister will continue to protect the home market from imported food where it can be produced here. That policy brought the Irish farmer a market worth many millions. We presume the Minister will welcome the maintenance of relief of agricultural rates which totals no less than £3,000,000 this year, and is a very considerable contribution in relief to the farmers. In the case of holdings of a certain acreage it means they are paying a smaller rate than a few years ago. We presume the Minister will not recommend to the Minister for Finance that there should be any change in the levy of the annuities.
With regard to the general encouragement of tillage, the Minister was not so precise. He spoke of bringing over an expert on grass-land. I take it he subscribes to the Fianna Fáil belief that in a great part of the country mixed farming encourages the production of good grass, but there are certain lands where it may be argued the pasture should be left permanent. I take it the Minister does not stray far from the Majority Report of the Post-War Commission on Agriculture. In that regard, although he may make many modifying statements, necessary in particular circumstances, I take it that in general he will agree with Fianna Fáil that tillage of any kind—we are not discussing wheat—improves the grass in many areas, gives employment and should be given every reasonable encouragement.
Reading his observations in regard to barley, oats and potatoes, I take that as his policy. I take it he subscribes to that aspect of Fianna Fáil policy and that it is not true, as might be gathered from listening to some of his speeches, that he is in fact a rancher type of farming advocate. Deputy Dr. Ryan assumed that the Minister agreed with the Majority Report in regard to that matter, and I follow Deputy Dr. Ryan.
I would like to hear more about the grass-land expert. Any expert who comes here should have some preconceived notions on how to direct farming policy and grass-land policy in a country with our humidity, rainfall and average temperature. We have heard that this man is to come from New Zealand. Unless he has studied where the climate approaches ours, and adopts a modest attitude, he may take us far off the track. There are 100-acre farms in New Zealand where there are 70 cows but no bullocks and where a man and his wife have no hired labour whatever with which to produce milk or butter for the market, where the grass is perpetual and is treated with artificial manures, where the fields are big and where the temperature in winter is higher than here. I trust the expert will not be prejudiced in his attitude. It will be interesting to hear the opinions of this expert. It is important that we should not have a man who arrives with a big prejudice.
The Minister is continuing the farm improvements scheme, and I would like to ask him to consider a suggestion which I made while the previous Government was in office and which, I think, was being considered by the Minister at the time. The object was to increase the number of farm improvements schemes in the area where paid labour is employed. If the Minister examines the figures of the number of grants issued in the bigger farm areas he will find they are a very small percentage of the total holdings in those areas. He will find a great concentration of the scheme in the congested areas, the areas where the person getting the grant receives cash for labour he has performed. If he examines Carlow, Wexford, Wicklow or Louth, he will find the scheme at a low ebb in these counties. It might take a considerable amount of complicated and perhaps annoying administration. Perhaps the Minister could give a larger grant, up to 70 per cent. or 80 per cent. of the labour value, for farm improvements schemes where the farmers employ labour. I ask him to consider that. I know it was being considered when the last Government fell, and I should like to draw attention to it.
The Minister spoke about an improved quality of seeds for this country. I understand that under the last Government, measures were in progress for securing the best seeds that could be provided for the renewal of our crops. I understand that was going on before the Minister took office. So far as the provision of artificial fertilisers is concerned, I understand the previous Government were ransacking the world for artificial manures and that there was no duty on them. I am glad to hear that the Minister is continuing that policy.
I do not want to repeat ad nauseam what has been said before but in common with other Deputies I should like the Minister to give us some indication of what he believes the price of creamery and other milk should be in comparison with the price of cattle generally. I think it was Deputy Lehane who said that the only good thing Fianna Fáil did during their term of office was to initiate the farm improvements scheme. I believe Deputy Lehane comes from a dairying area and I always understood that Fianna Fáil saved the dairying industry from complete destruction by the introduction of subsidies for butter. Even if there was no economic war, such a measure was highly desirable and should have been introduced at least 12 months before that. I do not know whether Deputy Lehane remembers that but perhaps his memory is too short. I trust the Minister will give careful consideration to the question of ancillary industries such as casein and allied products, tanneries, etc., the raw materials of which are provided by agriculture. I understand that there are a number of industries, for which the raw materials are agricultural products, which are awaiting the decision of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in regard to their protection. The question of protection has not yet been decided upon and I trust that the Minister for Agriculture will encourage the Minister for Industry and Commerce to come to a decision at an early date.
Of course, the former Government assisted farmers to improve or provide roads to their residences by initiating the farm improvements scheme, and I trust the Minister will put that into operation as soon as possible. I should like to hear from the Minister whether he considers that the subsidies which we gave for fertilisers and manures, which were still further increased through the supplementary budget, are sufficient. We are not going as far as Clann na Poblachta, who desired that manures and fertilisers should be given away to farmers, but we recognise the necessity for an extended use of these fertilisers. Is the Minister satisfied that the subsidy is now large enough? Conditions have changed even since the last Government left office. Is the subsidy large enough or does the Minister consider that the Minister for Finance might allow him even a loan under which higher subsidies for artificial manures could be provided for the next five years?
We are not allowed to discuss the agreement made with Britain, but I should like to point out, in passing, a fact that seems to be forgotten by some of the Deputies opposite that we did make a preliminary agreement with the British which was a step forward, and I have no doubt that if the former Government were still in office they would have improved on that agreement.
I should like to ask the Minister to supply us with some further information about the improvement of veterinary services. I understand that matter was under consideration by the former Government and that one of the difficulties lay in the training of the necessary number of vets. Does the Minister favour the veterinary dispensary scheme wherby a vet. would be in a certain place on a certain day where he could be reached by the farmers without difficulty? Is he in favour of a change in the method of administering the veterinary service or is he merely going to increase the number of vets to give them every encouragement or to plan some sort of veterinary insurance or some veterinary assistance scheme?
I should like also to ask the Minister whether he would give us some information as to the publicity he is going to undertake in connection with the soil analysis service. The arrangements for that service were commenced by the former Government. As the Minister may know, some 10,000 samples are sent for analysis every year by the level-headed farmers in Scotland. The figures are very small for this country, as far as I know. It seems to me that we should initiate an advertising campaign in this connection in a way which the farmers would understand. Farmers are loth to engage assistance for a purely technical service of this kind and I should like the Minister to say if he would think it wise to advertise that service.
Speaking about improvements schemes, the Minister will be aware that there are areas in the Gaeltacht in which schemes were operated which were largely devoted to bog roads and accommodation roads. In connection with these schemes it was sometimes found very difficult to find adequate work. There are areas in Galway where by-roads and small roads of that kind have been undertaken and where there is a great deal of unemployment. I would suggest that the farm improvements schemes and the unemployment schemes——
Where is the unemployment?
——might be operated jointly as a permanent feature. I do not know whether that matter has come to his attention. The Minister speaks of improved production and in the course of his observations he said that money was being provided to improve the quality of grass seed. Does he not believe that it would be advisable to offer a subsidy for grass seeds of an approved quality. There are areas in Longford where only half the farms sow grass seed of any quality upon land as an under-cover crop after a four years' rotation. A very large proportion of the farmers take what they find in the hay barn. Even if the price of good seed were much dearer, it would be still worth while in encouraging farmers to buy good seed. Does the Minister not consider it high time to make available a grant or subsidy for grass seed of approved quality?
The Minister said a great deal about inspectors. I have views which are entirely my own and which do not belong to any particular Party on the question of propaganda in regard to production in this country. The Minister said that he is never going to ask an inspector to enter on a man's land. I think it is time we adopted an entirely different administrative method for conducting propaganda operations in the Department of Agriculture. I do not believe that civil servants, working under Civil Service rules, are going to help the farmer to improve his production. I believe there should be an agricultural production council set up, quite independent of the Department, a council which should be given a policy and given money, and the people who work for it should not be called inspectors—I do not know what they should be called—but they should be people who would go around amongst the farmers and help them to improve their production by every means possible. They should be welcomed by the farmers——
They are.
——and they should be able to go inside a man's gate and help him, without having to adhere to strictly Civil Service rules—something like a glorified young farmers' club in operation throughout the country. I believe that something of that kind should be considered by the Minister. We have already delegated to boards a number of important activities, such as the giving of industrial credit, the giving of agricultural credit and assisting the tourist industry, but the propaganda work of this Department is still in the shadows, in which it must be, of Departmental routine. I should like to suggest to the Minister that, excellent as the Department is, if he were to change that method, he might have far better results.
In connection with agricultural education, during the lifetime of the former Government, it was extremely difficult, at least during the war, to procure mobile film units. I should like to know whether the Minister considers that the winter classes for agricultural instruction would be much better attended if there were always films available.
I am trying to procure six such units.
I am glad to hear that the Minister has adverted to that matter, because, if you have the type of film which can be stopped while the lecturer proceeds with his lecture and a hall of sufficient size, the attendance at these winter classes, which are so useful in connection with demonstrations in the summer, would be far greater. The attendance in County Longford in past years has been not more than 10 per cent. of the farming population at any time, and although it is hard to ask young farmers to come out on the long nights, in winter weather, to attend these classes, I have met a great many who did and who say that they gained great value from them.
I do not think the Minister has made it sufficiently clear to the House how he intends to use the increased maize supply. He has spoken of exporting the surplus potatoes to Great Britain, and I should like to ask him how he thinks that will affect pig production, and having regard to the present price of maize, £27 per ton, if there are largely increased supplies of that product, even if it comes down slightly in price, will it affect pig or poultry production more?
The Deputy forgets that that price includes the Fianna Fáil margin of profit.
Whatever margin it includes, will it affect pig or poultry production more? The Minister has taken over the scheme started by Fianna Fáil for increased poultry and eggs and he is very anxious to increase the production of pigs. How does he think the increased imported feeding stuffs will be utilised? Has he had regard to what the average price of compound feeding stuffs for pigs will be when the proportion of maize is very largely increased, due to its total greater importation, and what does he think the result will be in connection with pigs and poultry?
The Minister has, in very large measure, adopted the Fianna Fáil policy and is uncertain about other policy. I trust that he will clarify the issues before the House when he replies and that we may know what we have to face in the future. The Minister for Lands, in the course of his speech on the Estimate for Lands, stated that he foresaw the complete disappearance of all large farms in the Midlands. He was asked afterwards whether that means the farm well worked by a large number of workers would be divided, and he said no. The question was still left undecided as to why he made such a prophecy. I should like to ask the Minister——
Would the Deputy not ask that of the Minister for Lands.
——whether he agrees with the Minister for Lands with regard to the likely disappearance of all large farms in the Midlands.
That is a very flatfooted scamper outside the rules of order.
In intervening in this debate, I am under the double difficulty that I am not a farmer, or in any way an agricultural expert, and that the time factor and the desire of the House to conclude the debate on this Estimate makes my intervention, of necessity, brief. I had not the privilege of hearing all of Deputy Childers' contribution, but what I did hear of it was sufficient to increase for me the puzzle as to what constitutes Fianna Fáil agricultural policy, because his major premise, so far as I could understand, was that the present Minister was merely extending the policy of Fianna Fáil, except in so far as that policy had been somewhat curtailed or amended by incidentals like the economic war and the intervention of the world war; but, on the whole, I took it from him that there had been no radical departure in the agricultural field. This occasioned great surprise for me, in view of the acrimony with which the Minister's Estimate has been assailed by his Party colleagues.
However, so far as we in the Labour Party are concerned, we take cognisance of the fact that this is an inter-Party Government, and that the present Minister in presenting his policy is presenting a policy which is a compound more or less of the policies of the composite parts of the Government. It is not a Labour Party policy and there is therefore no necessity for us to defend the policy as a whole. Fianna Fáil policy was examined and analysed by the Labour Party on various occasions and our policy was very fully announced as far back as 1943, but the Labour Party as a whole has not had an opportunity of examining or analysing the policy of the present Minister. We must therefore speak with a certain amount of restraint and reserve on this matter. So far as the Labour Party policy was announced by Deputies Dunne, Davin and Kyne and, to a certain extent, Deputy Keyes, I am in accord with their presentation of it and with their concern for the agricultural worker more especially, and their request, if it was not more, to the Minister to reexamine this question of compulsory tillage, in so far as it relates to increased agricultural production.
More than that I do not want to say, but I want to draw the Minister's attention to an item of local interest in my constituency. I would not have intervened had Deputy Aiken made reference to the matter but unfortunately he was more concerned with matters which naturally interest the Opposition, such as election posters and promises, rather than with raising this matter, which is of vital importance to a very large agricultural section in my constituency. That relates to the question of Cooley potatoes which are under certain restrictions as black scab potatoes. The matter is long-standing, and with the advent of a new Minister for Agriculture many people concerned with the production of potatoes in the Cooley peninsula hope for a reorientation of policy in that matter. In this area there is a very high productivity of potatoes. The farmers there feel that the prevention of the export of Cooley potatoes to the Dublin market is not motivated on scientific grounds or by a desire to protect the seed potato export market, but is an unfair discrimination against them. I suggest that the matter should be re-examined by the Minister. If the contention of the farmers of Cooley is correct then a great injustice is being done, not only to the farmers but to the consumers in the Dublin market. The farmers maintain that their productivity is so high that they could supply to the Dublin market sufficient potatoes to reduce substantially the price in the Dublin market, and that, by reducing the price there, they would bring the price nearer to the price at which potatoes would be useful for pig feeding, and thus aid the production of bacon.
On these matters I am speaking second-hand. I do not pretend to any agricultural expertness, but there are certain aspects of it to which I would direct the Minister's attention. There is a degree of smuggling from that area to the Dublin market due to the great difference between the price at the alcohol factory, to which they are compelled to send the potatoes as the only outlet for their produce, and the price in the Dublin market. Smuggling has gone on for a considerable time and there is regular imposition of penalties and a certain amount of trouble is caused in the area. That would be obviated if there were some way of increasing the price for Cooley potatoes even in that area or of permitting export to England or of reducing the difference between the price at the alcohol factory and the Dublin price.
If one examines what happens the smuggled potatoes which are seized, the matter acquires a certain amount of mystery. On seizure, the potatoes are brought in to the town of Dundalk and it is found that they are railed somewhere to the south and apparently are used in some institutions under Government control in such a manner that the danger of black scab occurring in the area in which they are used is avoided. The thought naturally arises that if these smuggled potatoes can be used, as there is no doubt they can be used, for human consumption, there should be some means of regular Government control of the potatoes so that they would be washed or chemically treated and allowed on to the Dublin market.
The contention of the Department of Agriculture is that it is not the potatoes that are the source of contamination but the earth adhering to the potatoes which contains spores of a disease which could spread black scab to other parts of the country and, therefore, exportation of potatoes from this black scab area is a very serious matter, particularly in regard to the export seed trade. That export trade is of considerable value to the country and certificates have to be issued in respect of seed for export that the seed was not grown in any place within twenty miles of a black scab area. While there is this very stringent regulation in regard to seed potatoes, there seems to be no regulation whatsoever in respect of the exportation of beet or other crops from that area, which obviously carry the same earth. There is no decontamination squad attending to the potato workers, or those who work in the field and carry this earth on their boots from that area into Dundalk and the surrounding district and as far down as Dublin or anywhere else they may go.
There are many aspects of this matter that seem to indicate that the whole question should be reconsidered. At one period there may have been some necessity for cutting off the whole Cooley area. There may have been a case for it in the past and because that case was made out by the Department at that time—on scientific grounds, I have no doubt—it seems to me that they have gone on from year to year and that the matter has never been re-examined. Although promises were held out by various Deputies in the past that the Fianna Fáil Government would reconsider the matter, that was never done. The Cooley farmers now confidently hope that the new Minister for Agriculture in the inter-Party Government will take steps to have the question re-examined.
We have listened to appeals from most of the speakers on the opposite side of the House for cooperation and assistance for the Minister in carrying out his policy. I listened to Deputy Coburn yesterday making a very impassioned appeal, telling us it was our duty to assist the Minister to get the people to produce wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and all crops at the prices that have been guaranteed by the Minister. It is hardly necessary for any Deputy sitting behind the Government to-day to make appeals to this side of the House, because one outstanding plank on Fianna Fáil's programme is its agricultural policy. Since the first day Fianna Fáil took over the reins of Government, their every-day effort has been to try to make the people purely agricultural minded. It was not merely in the days of emergency that that effort was made.
We have heard many speeches regarding statements made by the present Minister. I cannot describe them as other than mischievous statements made by him during the emergency, at a time when the people had no hope of getting any food anywhere except that which could be produced by the farmers. Then this particular Minister was as obstructive as he could be and did his utmost to smash the food drive.
In his opening speech, he said that Fianna Fáil were responsible for giving Guinness £2,000,000 last year. Let me take one item and see what the Minister thinks about it. We are to get a guaranteed price of 55/- a barrel for barley, that is, £27 10s. 0d. a ton. The experience of everybody, especially of Deputies from the barley-growing districts, is that when Guinness gets a certain amount of barley he puts his foot down and says: "Thus far will I go and no further." That means that, if we have a surplus of barley above his requirments, it will have to be converted into animal food. That will cost £6 per ton, bringing the price of barley meal up to £33 10s. 0d. per ton. I would like the Minister to tell us how it will be economic to produce pigs fed on barley meal at £33 10s. 0d. a ton. I do not think it can be done.
The Minister has been charged from this side of the House with having drawn the pen across the farm buildings scheme. Although he had 25,000 applications, he did not try to realise that that showed the urgency for reconstruction and erection of out-offices all over the country. If he were satisfied with doing away with that particular scheme for the time being and helping to save the £350,000 that the Minister for Finance is seeking, we would not be so worried, but he has not been content with that. He has gone into the farm improvements scheme, to which he paid a very high tribute in his opening speech, when he complimented Deputy Dr. Ryan, who was responsible for introducing it, and told us that it was the greatest monument that could be erected to any mortal man. He was not satisfied with leaving the farm buildings scheme in abeyance, but he draws the Fine Gael economic axe right across the farm improvements scheme.
The Deputies who have been loud in their praise of the Minister's action have not gone to the labour of finding out what exactly he has done. I have here before me the form of application being sent out at present to those who wish to make application under this scheme. Do you know what this Minister is doing? He is cutting out the construction of water tanks, of liquid manure tanks, of silos, concrete stands for corn stacks, piers, cattle enclosures and a whole number of things that were carried on for years and years by the Fianna Fáil Minister for Agriculture, by the man whom this Minister complimented and whose scheme he described as his greatest monument. He has drawn the Fine Gael economic are across it, and now the only schemes for which you can get grants under the farm improvements scheme are drainage and other improvements purely on the land. The people who stand behind the Minister and who are not prepared to have this Estimate referred back, until such time as the Minister gives at least as much effect to the old farm improvements scheme as had been given by Fianna Fáil, are not doing their duty by the farming community or by the people who sent them here to represent the farming community.
We are told that we are not entitled to criticise the Minister. If that is not a reason for criticising him, I do not know where we are going or that we are doing our duty towards those who deserve more from us than anybody else, that is, the agricultural community. I can clearly understand the Minister doing things like that, as he has not been sent here by any section of the farming community. As far as I know, he has no association with any section of the farming community.
He is a farmer himself.
What does the Deputy know about his farm?
What does Deputy Killilea know about it?
His main business to-day is not farming. There are men who have farms in this country and who never saw them—and in other countries, too.
The Deputy might pay a visit to the Minister's farm and learn a good deal of useful information from it when he compares it with his own.
If the Deputy should need to learn anything and makes an effort, he will be prepared to carry on where he is. I am quite satisfied that the Minister for Lands up to recently was not prepared to stand by any of the statements made by this Minister. It is only the set of circumstances that have driven him into the benches opposite with him that has made him stand by him now. I do not think the Minister for Lands to-day is prepared to allow himself to be described as his colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance has described, in days gone by and up to recently, this present Minister for Agriculture—and the Minister for Lands knows that just as well as I do.
The Deputy should keep to the Estimate.
If you can manage to keep the Minister for Lands in his place, Sir, I will keep to the Estimate. We heard a lot said about the Department's inspectors and the way that they jumped in on top of farmers here and there. I want to say that I happened to be one of the Deputies who, during the emergency—I was not in the same position and my mind was not focussed in the same direction as that of the present Minister for Agriculture —and prior to it was interested in seeing agriculture carried on as I think it should be in this country—that is, that the land should be used mainly for the production of food for the people. Time and again I made reports to the Department of Agriculture—I am sure the Minister will find some of them in the Department— regarding people who were prepared to ride rough-shod over the regulations governing compulsory tillage. There were farmers—and this must be known to Deputies no matter what county they come from—and not small farmers either, who sowed wheat, barley and oats, and because they possess a destructive type of mind, and probably because of advice given to them by the present Minister for Agriculture, they turned their cattle and other stock in on those crops and allowed them to destroy them, rather than put them on the market to feed the people during the emergency. If inspectors went in and tried to make those people do their job, I think they deserve a little more credit than they have received from the Minister.
What is the position this year? Some farmers cannot be blamed for what they are doing, because I do not think anyone could blame the farmers of the country for taking the advice that was given to them by the present Minister for Agriculture. He was only a few weeks in office, as a matter of fact only a few days—indeed I could almost bring it down to a few hours—when one of the first announcements he made was that compulsory tillage was going to disappear. Now, a wise Minister coming in new to an office would take his time and see where exactly he stood in connection with compulsory tillage. He would have had plenty of time during, say, the coming 12 months, or we will even say six months, to make such a statement after he had examined the records of his office and the whole position. When he had done that, it would be time enough for him to make such a statement. Immediately the Minister made this announcement a few days after taking office there was a rush all over the country by farmers, not, I say again by small farmers, but by the bigger type of farmer, to collect any and every sort of hayseed to throw it on the soil. The result has been, as I know myself, that even in this very year I have had to report people for not having complied with compulsory tillage so far as wheat growing is concerned. No action, of course, was taken, and those people have not grown the wheat.
What did the Deputy say?
I said that in this very year I made complaints or at least brought to the attention of the Department by letter the cases of certain individuals who did not comply with the compulsory wheat-growing regulations.
A Deputy
Were they supporters of yours?
I have never made any distinction as to whether they were supporters of mine, or not. My idea in connection with compulsory tillage is, as the saying goes, that it is as good for the goose as for the gander. Everyone has to do it and everyone ought to be made do it, be he large or small farmer. I make no distinction.
Did the Deputy say that no action was taken on the report that he made?
Yes.
That statement is not true. Any report which reached my Department from the Deputy, or from any other citizen of this State, was fully investigated, and the law vindicated.
The Minister may be mixing up things. I made a report. There is no doubt in the world about that. Perhaps the Minister's inspectors visited those men, but I definitely say that no wheat has been grown. I can give him not one but a dozen names.
I would be very much obliged if the Deputy would send me any particulars that he has. If he does that, I will see that the law is enforced.
That is a new bit of information.
Can the Deputy give me any particulars now?
I do not want to mention names across the House.
If the Deputy gives me the particulars, I will have the matter investigated at once.
I can give them although it may be a hardship on those people because it is the Minister's own statement that, I think, is responsible for people not doing that work. I heard the Minister during this debate, when different Deputies were talking about the unemployment that exists here and there, ask: "Where is the unemployment?"
Hear, hear!
The Minister has in operation in the Counties of Galway and Mayo a field drainage scheme. On that scheme only a certain type of worker can get employment. He must be a man who was employed in turf production in 1947. The Minister has been so badly advised by his colleague, who has responsibility for the Office of Public Works that he does not seem to realise that it is not the same individuals who produce turf in this country in any one year.
Oh!
If the Minister wishes, I can go down the alphabet, O.P.Q., but what I have said is so. In 1945, there were men producing turf who perhaps went to England, or somewhere else, in 1946. Does the Minister think that the men who produced turf in 1946 were the same men as those who produced it in 1945? Is he going to try to convince me that he is so innocent as to believe that the men who produced turf in 1946 were the men who produced it in 1945, and that the men who produced it in 1947 were the men who had produced it in 1946?
Did they all go to England in 1946?
According to the Minister's statement this Government, since it came into office, cannot find any unemployed men.
Go bhfhóiridh Dia orrainn.
Since we have come in here as an Opposition, day after day we have listened to statements from different Ministers and from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance that when they tried to put schemes into operation they could not do it because there was no unemployment. Those are not the statements we listened to during the elections although the peat scheme was in operation then, and surely, since the peat scheme was dropped there must be more people unemployed. I want to tell the Minister that there are unemployed, but his scheme was deliberately drafted so as to convince the unemployed that they are working. A man who was 17½ years of age in 1947 would be 18½ years of age in 1948; he was not entitled to employment in 1947, so surely he would be entitled to it in 1948. Is there common sense in that statement? Are there not hundreds and thousands of such men in the country who cannot find employment? But the Minister comes along and says we have no unemployed. They are there, but you will not let them work. They are there, but you will not make any effort to find employment for them. I hope that what he has said with regard to the employment and the drainage scheme will be amended so as to give employment to those men who are looking for work and who are anxious to secure it. We have, as the Minister, I am sure, is aware, during the last three or four months more young men going to England and more young men and young women, too, going to America than in any similar months or in any three months for a number of years back. If you go to the different labour exchanges to find out whether what I am saying is correct or not, you will be convinced that that is so. I come from a constituency where I am alive to the conditions of employment and where I am alive to the conditions that exist regarding the people who are making a effort to get to England because they cannot get employment. The Minister's statement that there are no unemployed will, I am afraid, be true in the very near future, because there will be nobody there to be unemployed; they will all be gone
One other matter I would like to refer to is that the technical schools which we have all over the country are not, to my mind, being used for the purposes for which they were really intended. I always had the idea that these technical schools should be mainly for the purpose of giving education by way of domestic economy and I think domestic economy is one of the most important things.
What in the name of God have these schools to do with me?
From the point of view of domestic economy?
No, a ghrádh. It is the Minister for Education.
I am sorry that the Minister was not here for the principal thing I wanted to refer to, the fact that he has curtailed the farm improvement scheme.
I have not.
I beg your pardon. You might manage to fool the people behind you there, but any active Deputy in this House can contradict you by means of this pamphlet sent out by yourself or by your Department.
What pamphlet?
This is the application form that has to be filled in before you can get a farm improvement grant. This particular year you will not get a grant for the construction of water tanks, of liquid manure tanks, of silos, of concrete stands for corn stacks or cattle enclosures.
Deputy Smith decided that.
Deputy Smith had nothing to do with the farm buildings scheme. Now the poor Minister is feeling very worried. Mr. Smith or Mr. Fianna Fáil can be blamed for everything, but Mr. Smith cannot be blamed for cutting out the farm buildings scheme. The man who cut out the farm buildings scheme should have said at least: "I will allow the people to carry on with the works that Fianna Fáil had on their programme and allow the people who had started a farm improvement scheme to carry on to the same extent as heretofore." But you have not done that. It is the Minister alone who has drawn a pencil through this scheme. It is not Deputy Smith or any other Deputy in this House. It is the present Minister for Agriculture who has cut out the farm buildings scheme which Fianna Fáil had on their programme for the improvement of these things. When you decided to leave it in abeyance for a year you could at least have allowed the people to carry on with schemes they had undertaken. That would not have been too much for the Minister for Agriculture, and I hope he changes his mind about it. Seeing that we are not to have the farm buildings scheme for another year or so, I hope that this thing will be rectified and remedied so that people will be able to avail of the opportunity——
Deputy Smith dropped the farm buildings scheme.
I want to make quite clear that Deputy Smith brought in the scheme for the improvement of farm buildings.
Yes.
But let it be clearly understood that it was not Deputy Smith who drew the blue pencil across that scheme in order to save £350,000. It is the present Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Dillon.
Wait until I read the files.
You can read all the files you like, but I have things that I can interpret too; the people will not get the improvements which they were getting under Fianna Fáil, and you are responsible for it.
I propose to be very brief on this Estimate, but I will commence with the concluding remarks of Deputy Killilea, who complains that the Minister for Agriculture put in abeyance the farm buildings scheme and the farm improvements scheme. The Deputy realises as well as anybody in this House that there is a cement shortage and a keen demand for houses at the present time and that the Government has to choose between the provision of cement for pig sties and the provision of cement for houses for the Irish people.
We build, down the country, with stones and we still have got stone masons, so that red herring is no good.
You want something to keep them together.
Mortar.
Fianna Fáil had to do something to justify their existence during their period of office. Their outstanding achievement was the slaughter of our calves.
They are being slaughtered still.
They are not, and I have the figures here.
I could walk down town and get veal anywhere I like in a restaurant.
There is a difference between the slaughter of calves now which has not the Minister's blessing, and the slaughter of calves under the Fianna Fáil policy when every farmer who could prove that he had murdered a calf received 10/- on producing the skin.
He referred to the wheat scheme under the Fianna Fáil Government. It would have been better if Fianna Fáil had left the compulsory wheat scheme until the war came about when we would have had more fertile soil for better crops. When the war came we had what you might call a dust bowl in which to attempt to grow the necessary wheat in this country.
This Estimate appears to be something in the nature of a post-mortem on the agricultural industry. The Minister's statement on the Estimate is encouraging because he has indicated his plans for the future. He has encouraged the farmers to take the long view and plan for the future and not be planning from one day to another. We find the Minister standing alone amongst the shattered ruins of the agricultural industry and wondering which way to look so that he can bring some form of prosperity to that industry, which ought to be the main industry of the country. I know that he has a colossal task before him. I also know that the policy of Fianna Fáil has not been in favour of agriculture. It must be admitted by the Party themselves that the Fianna Fáil policy had a completely industrial bias, that if industry was to be put on its feet, agriculture had to suffer, and it did suffer.
The former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Smith, spoke for something like four and a half hours on this Estimate. He abused the Minister and accused him of being unbalanced and irresponsible. He based those observations on some after-dinner speeches made by the Minister. No doubt, these speeches were made off the record: they were not official statements, and speaking after dinner the Minister was expected to give some form of topical expression to whatever matter was under discussion. I do not think Deputy Smith was justified in adopting the rôle of alienist in this matter. I think that people are able to form their own opinions, especially the farmers.
The Minister should be let away with it.
He is getting away with nothing so far as we are concerned. The farmers do not forget the bullying methods adopted by the previous Minister for Agriculture. They remember well his statement at Navan. That goes further into the minds of the farmers than the present Minister's expressions on some occasions after dinner. The Deputy complained that the farmers were conservative, which goes to show that they did not indicate any kind of reliance on the Fiana Fáil policy. Farmers are conservative and they certainly will not run into any stunts which might seem crazy to them. The calf population at present is the lowest yet recorded. That is a desperate position when we consider that in Great Britain and Europe there is an almost unlimited demand for fresh meat at the present time. I realise that the Minister has a difficult task before him to devise methods which will increase the calf population to a reasonable level within a short time.
Deputy Smith also in the course of his prolonged attack on the present Minister scorned modern farm methods. He implied that a stick tied to a donkey's tail is good enough for the Irish farmer, decrying the Minister's statement that he would prefer to see modern methods employed rather than the broken-winded horses which are used on various farms. He also said that some farms range from one to 20 acres. I do not see how Deputy Smith could see his way to feed two broken-winded horses on a five-acre farm. It is not economic. He could have something in the nature of a light tractor or machinery to till that land. In Rush there are farms of not more than five acres and the farmers there have tractors for tilling the land.
They must be busy.
They are very busy farmers. They are market gardeners and I can assure the Deputy that they are able to get three crops out of their land in the 12 months. They are able to use tractors efficiently on less than one acre of land. Besides the four-wheel tractors, Deputies opposite should know that there are also the smaller machines which could be purchased by small landowners instead of attempting to feed horses on a small area of land. Deputies who are familiar with farming methods will agree with me that the cost of feeding a horse is something like £2 a week. The feeding of a useless broken-winded horse is not good economics, even though it may be argued that the manure could be put into the land, whereas with a tractor it is just a question of using the fuel. We would have been lucky in this country if we had succeeded in importing a sufficient number of tractors in 1938 or 1939 when they could have been got at a reasonable price.
What about the oil?
The Deputy will remember that during the war tractors dating back to the years between 1915 and 1920 were sold at something in the region of £400 each. That shows the grave need there was during the emergency years for machinery instead of horses. Deputies who are aware of the conditions on the larger farms, on looking back, will see that the farmers with the larger farms were compelled to replace teams of horses by tractors because the tractors were able to do a greater amount of work, as efficiently as horses, in a shorter period of time. The British and the Northern Ireland farmers during the war years received subsidies. I will mention specially the potato subsidy. Agriculture in this country has not been subsidised to any such extent. In fact, we pay rates on agricultural land and that is not the case in Northern Ireland or Britain. Therefore the overhead charges in this country are far higher than they are in Britain. Light tractors can work quicker and better on these small farms that I have mentioned. I hope the Minister will devise a scheme whereby he can make such machinery available to farmers in a locality who cannot afford to buy it themselves.
Certainly, with knobs on.
There was some indication by the Minister that it was possible that in the future, tillage might be dispensed with. I would rather see a reduction in the tillage quota, even if it were a very drastic reduction, than a complete abandonment of the scheme of quotas. There is the possibility that some farmers who are not inclined to give employment will take advantage of it, whereas the ordinary farmer will carry on in a reasonable way. There are tillage contractors who have purchased anything from £1,000 to £5,000 worth of machinery. I have in mind a farmer who has three threshing-mills, six tractors and four lorries in operation. If compulsory tillage is abandoned he will lose. His machinery will become useless, because he carries out the tillage on other people's farms. He carries the tillage out on the farms of persons who cannot afford to till them themselves and who are not suitably fitted, as he is, to till. If compulsory tillage is completely abandoned these landholders will not let the land in conacre to this man who is carrying on as a tillage contractor. I have been informed that some farmers in Meath, rather than equip themselves to carry out compulsory tillage quotas, pay a contractor £1, £2 or £3 an acre to take the land from them and comply with the tillage regulations by tilling the necessary quota. That matter was mentioned in this House by a Deputy. This is an example where unemployment would be caused. The farmer whom I have just mentioned employs about 60 men for a period of four months. If the land is to be put into grass again, the question as to whether farmers have sufficient capital to fully stock their land arises. If they have not sufficient capital, especially in view of the shortage of live stock and the present high prices prevailing, it would seem that the land would not be producing and would not be giving employment either.
I should like the Minister to consider the abolition of compulsory tillage so far as dairy farmers are concerned— especially farmers who have a holding of normal size, having regard to the acreage of the farm and the number of cows on it. When it was indicated that, to some extent, compulsory tillage might be abolished in the future some farmers decided that they would not give any further employment. Luckily, that is not typical of the general farmer. He carries on mixed farming rather than give no employment at all. It is necessary that the Minister should devise a scheme whereby the quality of grass will be improved. Any Deputy who goes along a road and looks across the broad acres of land can see at a glance that the grass is not of good quality. The land needs to be treated in some way or other—probably by lime or phosphates —to produce a good class of grass. It is the same as anything else—an acre of land will produce more grass if it is a good type of grass. I understand that there is a farm in County Dublin which makes grass meal. The particular machine concerned mows the grass, processes it and sends it out in the form of meal all in the one operation. It is not disputed that grass meal, especially if it is of good class, has a high feeding content. For that reason I am anxious that the Minister will take active steps to improve the class of grass growing in our grasslands.
The sheep population at the present time is very low. There is a strong demand for mutton outside this country as well as inside it. It seems to me that the most desirable action that the Minister could take in this matter is to prevent the slaughter of ewe lambs because in the near future it might be one method of increasing the sheep population. That brings me to the question of wool prices. Farmer Deputies of this House will agree with me when I say that the price per pound for wool given to farmers bears little or no relation to the price of wool when it issues as a finished product. I should like to see the Minister devising a scheme whereby the price received for the raw material would bear some relation to the cost of the finished article.
The pig position is pretty bad at the moment. We must remember that, besides the farmers, the farm workers participated in the past in the production of pigs and the ultimate production of bacon. I should like to see the Minister bringing forward some kind of scheme that would encourage agricultural workers to feed pigs and have them for sale periodically as they did in the past. Bacon quotas in the shops apparently do not satisfy the demand that there is for bacon at the present time. On inquiry I have ascertained that the shopkeepers are receiving their full quotas. Illegal curing destroys any effort the Minister or anybody else may aim at in the matter of increasing pig production. I would urge the Minister to put down all classes of illegal curing because it is the most destructive method that can be adopted so far as the destruction of the pig population is concerned.
The wheat price of 62/6 per barrel over a period of five years offers a good business to the farmers. Taking the long view, the farmer will be in a position to calculate what return he will receive from any particular acreage. He will be able to choose the number of acres suitable to himself — the acres that he can have properly fertilised and treated for the production of a good paying crop. Besides farmyard manure, fertilisers have proved to be very valuable so far as wheat is concerned. In fact, it is true that the application of fertiliser increases a wheat crop to the extent of 50 per cent. on reasonable land. That is a very considerable measure of improvement when it comes to reaping the crop and balancing the farm budget.
There is an unlimited scope for agricultural production at the present time. In the development and in the stepping-up of agricultural production, I believe that the machine will have to take a very prominent part. For that reason I hope that the Minister will take some steps to equip farmers with all classes of useful instruments. I am sure that that work can be done through the various county committees of agriculture. If the Minister succeeds in creating prosperity amongst the farming community the farmer will be in a position to pay better wages to his farm workers. Nobody disputes the fact that the standard of pay of farm workers, having regard to the skilled nature of their work, bears very little relation to the wages received by employees in other occupations. The farm worker is a very skilled individual. He has to be a veterinary surgeon, a mechanic and a scientist all at the one time. That is why I say that he should be regarded as a highly skilled individual and paid accordingly.
It is reassuring to know from the Minister that he proposes raising the barley price from 45/- to 55/-. It is a step in the right direction. It is a step nearer to the world market price. It is desirable that as far as prices for agricultural goods in this country are concerned, and especially having regard to the demand for produce outside this country, we should get as near to the world market price as possible.
This brings me to the question of costings. The Minister will, I am sure, agree that if some form of costings were in operation it would help the farmers as a guide in their own budgets. Even if such costings were only crudely done and even if they did not fully represent normal conditions they would be of considerable assistance. These costings could be done on the model farms. It might be argued by the ordinary farmers that conditions on the model farms are very different from the conditions on the ordinary farms. At the same time such costings would fill a gap in farming economy generally.
The sugar beet position is not as encouraging as it might be. There are some drawbacks in the growing of beet. I would suggest to the Minister that he should confer with the Minister for Finance as to the possibility of increasing the price of sugar by 1d. per lb. That extra 1d. would give a good return to the growers and it might in time have the effect of bringing about the abolition of the rationing system.
A good deal of criticism has been levelled against meat prices at the present time. I believe the present high level of prices is bound to continue so long as the demand is greater than the supply. When conditions return to normal prices will fall because the world market will then bring to bear once more its influence in the sphere of competition. So long as there is a scarcity there will be difficulty in regard to retail prices. In the coming year we shall find it difficult to meet the full demand of the British market for meat. So long as that position obtains the retail price of meat in this country will create difficulties and problems for the Ministers concerned.
So far as the dairying industry is concerned, I am convinced that in our particular farming economy the dual-purpose cow is the most valuable animal we can have. I believe that the dual-purpose cow is a definite asset when we come to consider which particular class of live stock we should cultivate in this country. We must take the long view. For that reason I am in favour of the double dairy cow. If it comes to the point where the Minister has to decide in favour of one class of live stock as against another, then I say that he should definitely take the dual-purpose animal.
I would appeal to the Minister to take immediate steps to prevent the slaughter of calves. In various hotels and restaurants at the moment veal is available on the menu. It is our endeavour to increase the live-stock population. If we permit the killing of prime veal calves we cannot expect to bring about the desired effect.
Deputy Major de Valera said that the price of vegetables was too high. So far as the farmers of County Dublin are concerned, the retail price of vegetables bears very little relation to the price the farmers get for their produce in the markets. So far as vegetables are concerned it is, therefore, a question of marketing.
I feel that some steps should be taken to make provision for the inclusion of instruction in agriculture in the curriculum of the rural schools. It must be appreciated that the majority of the children attending these schools will eventually be either farmers themselves or agricultural labourers. Systematic education in agriculture is important from the point of view of future generations.
I know it is the Minister's intention to give a square deal to the farmers. I know it is his desire to put our main industry on its feet. If he succeeds in restoring our live-stock population and the fertility of our soil, thereby increasing the volume of agricultural production, he will create a measure of prosperity in the country such as it has not heretofore known and that prosperity, in turn, will percolate to industry, commerce and the professions. We all know that, fundamentally, prosperity comes from the soil. We have a fertile soil capable of development. We have a soil that will react favourably to proper treatment. I am convinced that the Minister will succeed in his determination to restore the fertility to our soil, thereby assuring us of prosperity in the future.
Mhair an díospóireacht seo tamall maith agus ní maith liom cur léi go mór. Ní cainteoir leadránach mé agus déanfad mo dhicheall gan a bheith leadránach an iarraidh seo; ach ní féidir liom an ócáid seo a ligint tharm gan tagairt a dhéanamh do chúis gearáin amháin. Chualamuid trácht ó gach taobh den Teach ar mheasaisíní, tractors, cruithneacht, earnan, eallach reamhar, ba bainne, im agus eile, ach, fairíor, ní bhaineann ceachtar de na rudaí sin ro-dluth leis na ceantracha cúnga, bochta, iargulta. Níor chualamuid glór na Gaeltachta fós sa díospóireacht. Is minic a deirtear go mbíonn an iomarca cur i gcéill i dtaobh na Gealtachta.
Ach ní raibh aon chur i gcéill ag an bhfear a bhí in áit an Aire atá anois ann—An Teachta MacGabhann —nuair a bhunaigh sé na tithe gloine; agus ní raibh aon chur i gcéill ag an Aire nuair a dúirt sé gan frapa gan taca ar a chéad mheastacháin go raibh sé lena stopadh. Bhí an Teachta MacGabhann i ndearmad, áfach, nuair a dúirt sé gur athraigh an tAire a intinn i dtaobh na ceiste ar iarratas toscaireachta a tháinig aniar chuige. Tamall i ndiaidh an toscaireacht i gcomhairle leis, chuireas-sa ceist Dála air ag iarraidh air cúigear iarrthóirí a thoghadh in ionad cúigear eile a tharraing siar as an Scéim. D'fhreagair sé is dúirt nach dtoghfadh, mar gur dóigh leis nach raibh sa scéim ach caimiléaracht déisteanach. D'fhiafraíos annsin de cad chuige, más amhlaidh a bhí, nár chuir sé deireadh ar fad leis an scéim, agus dúirt sé go gcuirfeadh marach go raibh gafa ro-fhada léi ag an Aire a bhí ann roimhe, agus go raibh a lámha ceangailte mar gheall air. Ní raibh aon mhuga-magadh aige faoi. Is mór an truaigh nach mbreithneodh an tAirn scéim ar a fiúntas fhéin. Má fhaghane sé blas nó boladh Fhianne Fáil ar rud ar bith bíonn déistean air dó. Tá an oiread sin gráin aige don scéim seo gur dóigh le gach duine a bhfuil baint ar bith aige léi nach féidir rath a bheith uirthi. Chualas scéal greannmhar le goirid faoi seo. Bhí oifigigh de chuid na Roinne ag cur spréála nó rud éigin as buidéil ar na planndaí. Bhí amhras ar chuid de na daoine gur rud nimheanta a bhí ann a dhéanfadh dochar do na trátaí agus bhíodar idir dhá chomhairle ar chóir dóibh bac a chur leis na h-oifigigh. 'Séard a deirtear freisin. go bhfóiridh Dia ar na h-oifigigh, mara bhféachfaidh siad chuige go loicfidh an toradh. Ar ndóigh is caint ráiméiseach í, ach sé mochtadh intinne an Aire cionntsiocair leí. Cé go bhfuil an tAire in aghaidh na scéime ba chóir dó, ós rud é go gcaithfear dul ar aghaidh leí, a theaspáint do na daoine, agus go mór-mhór do na h-oifigigh, go mba mhaith leis go n-éireoch léi thar cionn. Tá ré na míorbhuilt thart, ach síltear go mba mhíorbhuilt é dá n-éiriódh leis an rud seo agus an tAire ina haghaidh. Bhí sé, scathamh, ina Theachta do Thír Chonaill agus tuigeann sé comh cruaidh is tá saol na Gaeltachta, agus ní h-é an doicheall a beifí ag súil leis uaidh roimh rud ar bith a dhéanfadh a leas nó a d'fhreagródh dóibh. Níor dochar ar bith dó dá ngabhfadh sé siar agus dá míníodh sé do na daoine an t-údar a bhí aige leis an gcaint a rinne sé sa gcúis seo, agus dá míníodh sé céard tá faoi a dhéanamh dóibh ina háit. Idir gheáitsí an Aire faoi na tithe gloine agus stopadh obair na móna, ní fhéadfadh muintir na gceanntracha bochta gan a bheith den tuairim nach í an Ghaeltacht atá ag déanamh imní don Rialtas seo, ach a mhalairt.
Tá scéim eile a rinne an-leas do na ceantracha cúnga agus sí sin Feabhsú na bhFeilm. Tá aicme daoine, áfach, nach bhfuil buntáiste na scéime seo ag dul dóibh agus sin iad na lanúna óga a dhéanas botháin amuigh ar an gcimín. Ní bhíonn teideal faoin dlí acu chuig an talamh. Is amhlaidh a phósas mac le tionónta amháin, iníon le tionónta eile, agus ní chuireann aon tionónta in aghaidh an lanúna óig nuair a shaothraíos cuid den chimín agus a chuireas siad fúthu air. Sé mo thuairim gur fearr iad a fheiceál ag fanacht ar an tuaith ná dul isteach i seomraí i nGaillim nó i mbaile mór eile agus a bheith ag braith ar chúnamh poiblí. Tá na daoine óga seo ag déanamh obair mhaith agus ag saothrú droch-thalamh nach saothrófaí ar aon bhealach eile. 'Sé m'iarratas ar an Aire go ndéanfadh sé pé athrú is gá chun go mbeadh buntáiste na scéime ar fáil ag an dream seo atá ag saothrú na talún chomh maith, agus béidir níos cruaidhe, ná talmhaithe ar bith eile.
Much has been said during this debate regarding the production and price of milk. I have a few remarks to make in that connection which I hope will not unduly delay the House. The greater part of the constituency which I have the honour to represent is catered for by two large co-operative societies and the Dairy Disposals Company. These three organisations constitute the only market for milk in that huge area and the plea I wish to make here is on behalf of farmers who cannot avail of any of these organisations to market their milk.
I wish, first of all, to pay a very well-deserved tribute to the Dairy Disposals Company for the enormous amount of work and organisation that they put into the provision of a market for milk in the Beara peninsula. There is no doubt that they did a very decent job there. In a short time, they built up an organisation that catered for every gallon of milk in that remote and difficult area. Their efforts have been crowned with success, one of the most successful undertakings we have seen operated by that or any other organisation in that part of the country.
For many years I have been exhorting the officials of the company to extend their efforts to the Glengarriff area. It would be a very easy matter for them when they have a travelling creamery on the road from Castletownbere to Droumgollane to continue a few miles further on to Glengarriff, take up the milk there and separate it. They have failed so far to connect with that district. They had one excuse or another—the scarcity of lorries and machinery—during the war, but I think this should not hold any longer. There is no reason now, with machinery and lorries available, why that area could not be catered for, either from Castletownbere or from Kenmare from which a travelling creamery comes to Bonane to within a few miles on the north side. I know the quantity of milk available there is small but I am satisfied, from my experience, that a travelling creamery, even with small supplies, would provide a market where none exists at the moment. During the time that the Dairy Disposals Company have been operating travelling creameries in the Beara peninsula they have given satisfaction to the farmers.
Much has been said about costs of production and the price of milk generally over the country, but I think the first thing our farmers want is to have a market for the milk. Milk is being produced at the moment in a few areas in which there is no market for it, more especially since the subsidy was removed on home-produced butter. These people were able to get a fair price for home-produced butter up to recently but now they require this market more than ever. They also require some organisation to assist them in the poultry scheme there. It is true that about 12 months ago the Dairy Disposals Company started this industry in the area. They set up a hatchery and purchased a farm to raise stock. I think they should go a bit further and they should be empowered to give credit to their suppliers where it is required for the purchase of stock such as poultry and cattle. That is one great fault that I have to find with them in that area, that they do not give credit to their customers to purchase commodities which they do not sell themselves.
In passing, I should like to place on record my horror at the company's entering into competition with local merchants in the sale of any kind of retail goods that they have not hitherto sold. In other words, I do not think that the company should be allowed to go into the retail trade of goods which they have not been retailing in the past. If they are allowed to do that, it would certainly be to the detriment of local merchants and the local towns eventually.
There is some kind of unwritten law by which co-operative societies had, more or less, a monopoly or a right to trade in a particular area for themselves. I am sure that is done after consultation with the officials of the Department. At any rate, there are boundaries beyond which one co-operative society may not enter into competition with another co-operative society. The same applies with regard to the co-operative societies and the Dairy Disposals Company. I have in mind an extensive area where there are 300 or 400 farmers, good, hardworking, industrious farmers who can get more out of an acre than farmers in any other part of the country. These people have no market for their milk. There is a stretch of country extending from Glengarriff to Kealkil where there is a branch of the Drinagh Co-operative Society's creamery, and there is also a branch in Bantry, but the whole area from Snave, Coomhola, through the Borlin Valley to the Kerry border is absolutely unprovided for.
Officials of the Dairy Disposals Company have time and again given the excuse of shortage of lorries and machinery. Like the Glengarriff area, I hold that these excuses can apply no longer, and that the Drinagh Co-operative Society should get instructions to provide creamery facilities for that area or the Dairy Disposals Company should provide them. It would be very easy for one or the other to put a travelling creamery on the road from Bantry or Kealkil. The Drinagh Co-operative Society could put a travelling creamery on the road to take in all that country and return to Kealkil with the cream. If they refuse to do that and say that this valley does not belong to their area, I think the Dairy Disposals Company should be asked by the Minister to proceed with the work there. They could very easily work it in from Kilgarvan, over the hill to the Borlin Valley and on to Glengarriff and back to Kenmare or Castletownbere. I trust that steps will be taken immediately to provide creamery facilities for that area which appears to be no man's land, in so far as the co-operative societies are concerned.
There is another similar area which is right in the heart of the Drinagh Co-operative Society's territory, if I may call it so, the Mealagh Valley. The end of this valley is only about eight miles from the creamery itself and the people on both sides of the Mealagh River have not been given proper creamery facilities. They are hard-working and industrious farmers who have been producing milk and are anxious to produce, but cannot get a satisfactory market for it, being too far away from the creamery. It is clearly the duty of the Drinagh Co-operative Society to put a travelling creamery in that valley and so give the people there an opportunity to market their milk.
This co-operative society has another area in its territory which is worthy of more consideration—Whiddy Island, in Bantry Bay. This island has a very industrious, intelligent and hardworking population of farmers. They have excellent land and very good cattle. Time and again, we have made representations to the Drinagh Co-operative Society to provide some creamery facilities on the island. What they want is a separating station, so that the cream can be brought across to Bantry by the boat which plies with the post every day. The Drinagh Co-operative Society's officials have examined this matter and they have given various excuses, but during all the years no creamery facilities have been provided for Whiddy Island. It is within two miles of Bantry town and has good farmers, good land, good cattle and a good supply of milk. I trust that the Minister will be able to renew representations to the Drinagh Co-operative Society and, if they still refuse to provide the facilities, that some arrangement will be made by which the Dairy Disposals Company will collect the cream there.
On the southern side of that constituency, the Dairy Disposals Company have been operating for the past couple of years and have succeeded in providing a much-wanted market for milk in the Goleen area. This was also a very remote area for which co-operative societies refused to cater, and the people of the area have expressed their satisfaction with the provision made by the Dairy Disposals Company; but I am not satisfied that the company has done as much organisation in that peninsula between Skibbereen and Mizen Head as they could have done in the past 12 months or two years. It is quite true that they have provided this very much-wanted market for milk in the Goleen area, but they have built a centre at Aughadown and have not yet succeeded in organising the areas in between.
I am not satisfied, either, with the way the company has handled the area around Ballydehob. As the House is aware, the Dairy Disposals Company took over the interests of creamery proprietors in that area and they have been dilly-dallying too long with the Ballydehob area. In my opinion, they have not played fair with the local creamery proprietors while they have entered into competition with them in taking milk from that area.
The farmers of that area have long been requesting that a stop for a creamery will be provided there and they are still awaiting the provision of a stop for a travelling creamery which would be central in that area. With all the speed made in earlier years by this company, I cannot understand why they have not succeeded in organising that area to a greater extent and with more efficiency.
The position regarding all these areas that I have mentioned is really urgent and could be remedied with very little loss of time if the company got down to it. The position of the farmers who were depending on marketing their butter in the past is now definitely very critical, and the only way they can be helped is to provide a market for their milk. I trust the Minister will consider the position regarding the areas I have mentioned and remedy matters in the way I have suggested or, possibly, in some better way, with the least possible delay.
Ba mhaith liom cúpla focal goirid a rá faoin scéin tábhachtach sin a chuir Rialtas Fianna Fáil ar bun i nGaeltacht Thír Chonail anuiridh nó i dtús na bliana sco. Táim ag trácht ar an scéim chéanna a ndearna an Teachta Mac Pharthaláin tagaint di, scéim na dtithe gloine. Ba mhaith liom a rá go raibh brón agus íontas orainn go léir nach raibh an tAire sásta dul ar aghaidh leis an scéim sin nó leis an scéim a mhéadú nó a leathnú ar na Gaeltachta go léir. Sin í an intins a bhí ag Rialtas Fianna Fáil, go raibh siad leis an scéim a leathnú ar fud na Gaeltachta chun cuidiú le saol na ndaoine sna límistéir sin. Ba mhaith liom insint don Aire go bhfuil an scéim sin ag dul ar aghaidh go h-an-mhaith i dTír Chonaill. Gach aon duine atá baint aige leis an scéim, tá sé íontach sásta leis an dóigh a bhfuil sé ag aghaidh agus táid den bharúil gur cheart an scéim a leathnú agus na tithe gloine a chur ar bun ins na háiteacha nach bhfuil an scéim sin ag obair go fóill.
Tá brón orm, dá réir, go bhfuil saol níos measa ag muintir Thír Chonaill i mbliana nar mar a bhí de blianta. Tá níos mó imithe ón Ghaeltacht ná d'imigh le 20 bliain. Tá scéim na móna críochnaithe agus, mar is eol don Aire, níl an talamh ansin maith go leor le daoine a choinneáil sa bhaile agus caithfidh an Rialtas scéimeanna den tsort seo, scéimeanna cosúil le tithe gloine, a chur ar bun le cuidiú leis na daoine ansin gléas beatha a bhaint amach ins an phairt sin den tír.
Má tá an scéim ag dul ar aghaidh go maith i dTír Chonaill, tá mise den bharúil gur cheart don Aire a rá linn go bhfuil sé fá choinne cuidiú leis an nGaeltacht agus na tigthe seo a chur sna háiteacha nach bhfuil siad ann go fóill. Tá mise den bharúil go bhfuil sé ag dul ar aghaidh mar sin agus gur cheart don Aire smaointiú ar aon Ghaeltacht nach bhfuair na tithe sin go fóill agus cuidiú leis na daoine annsin sa dóigh céanna a chuidigh Rialtas Fianna Fáil le paráiste chloich Chinn Fhaolaigh, i dTír Chonaill agus paráiste eile i gCo. na Gaillimhe. Tá sé íontach deacair a thuiscint go bhfuil an Rialtas —mar tá an Rialtas—ag dul ag sábháil airgid ar scéimeanna den tsort sin san am céanna iad ag iarraidh daoine a choinneáil beo ins an nGaeltacht.
Cloisimid cuid mhaith de na Teachtaí ag cainnt faoin nGaeltacht agus chomh tábhachtach is atá sé scéimeanna a bheapadh leis an aos óg a choinneáil sa chaile agus saol na ndaoine d'fheabhsú. Ba cheart don Aire dul ar aghaidh leis an scéim a chuir an Rialtas deiridh ar bun. Níor thug sé seans éigin don scéim sin agus ba cheart dó amharc isteach sa cheist agus, má tá sé ag dul ar aghaidh go maith, insint don Dáil agus do lucht na Gaeltachta go bhfuil sé fá choinne an scéim a mhéadú agus a leathnú ar fúd na Gaeltachta go léir.
Is slán do gach saoránach a ionad cónaithe agus ní cead dul isteach ann go foiréigneach ach do réir dlí. Tá a fhios agaibh cá háit a bhfuil na focla sin inniu. Bhí siad ar bhratha an Land League 70 bliain ó shoin agus tá siad chomh fíor inniu agus a bhí siad 70 bliain ó shoin. Ach, deirimse anseo, is slán do gach saoránach a ionad conaithe agus ní cead do chigire dul isteach ann ach do réir dlí.
It appears, according to the Deputies who belong to the Fianna Fáil Party that the law that I have just read out of the Constitution—"The dwelling of every citizen is inviolable and shall not be forcibly entered save in accordance with the law"—is to be the fundamental right of only such citizens of this State as are not farmers. I have just said that these words are taken from the Constitution but they first appeared upon the standards of the Land League. We invoked them and those who went before us invoked them to establish the principle that the people of this country who live and get their living on the land would have the right to stand upon their threshold and forbid any man to cross it until they invited him. There was a good deal of blood spilt in this country and a good deal of suffering undergone to establish that no landlord and no land-lord's bailiff would force his way into any kitchen in this country until the farmer, large or small, ten acres or 1,000 acres, invited him in.
Very well; I believe that that is just as true to-day and just as well worth fighting for in 1948 as it was in 1878, and I want to re-establish the doctrine in this country that, on the holdings of our people, no officer of my Department, from the Minister down to the most junior officer, shall have the right to enter uninvited. If the people of this country want a different rule of law, then they must have a different Minister because, so long as I am Minister for Agriculture, no officer of my Department will use my name to force his way unwanted, in the ordinary discharge of his duty, on to the holding of any free citizen of this country. I do not subscribe to the view that the farmers of this country have to be flogged into doing their day's work.
Who said they had?
I do not subscribe to the view that, when we do not claim the right to tell the storekeeper what to do, or tell the doctor what to do, or tell the contractor or anybody else what to do, we have any right to go in and tell the farmer when he must get up and go to bed, how he is to work his land, what he is to plant, when he is to sow and reap.
Unless he is killing pigs.
If the farmers are incapable of using the land of Ireland without supervision and coercion every hour of their lives, we can throw our hats at it. I am staking my political existence on the proposition that there are no people in the world better able to use the land of Ireland to the greatest advantage than the farmers who live and get their living on it; and, given access to the implements and the requisites with which to cultivate that land, it will be the most fruitful land upon the surface of the earth.
Will you allow them kill their own pigs?
In five years' time, I will not be one bit afraid to go to the country, in any constituency in Ireland, whether it is a city constituency or a country constituency; and I venture to prophesy that, whether they are city dwellers or country dwellers, they will demonstrate by their votes that we are right and Fianna Fáil was wrong. We believe in free men on the land of our country and we are sick of fighting for the right to be free in our own country.
There is no Government, foreign or domestic, that will keep our people on the land in the position of hewers of wood and drawers of water. There has been for long enough in this country a proposition that, if you are an industrialist or a tariff racketeer or an exploiter, you are entitled to wear a silk hat and drive in a Chrysler car and keep a house standing in its own grounds in the suburbs of Dublin, and draw your living out of the little men, the insignificant men, the hardworking men who live upon the land. That day is over. The farmers of this country are now the big men, the farmers of this country are now the people that matter and it is the interest of the farmers of this country which will be the first charge upon the Government that we now have. Is that clear to everybody? When I say "the farmers of this country", I mean the men and women who live upon the land and get their living on the land, whether they be tenant purchasers of their land or the agricultural workers, moving with dignity about their work, hoping that they some day will also enter the privileged ranks of those who are to be farmer-proprietors in due time. There is no step forward that the farmers of this country can make in prestige or comfort that may be made with justice unless those who own the land and enjoy its fruits remember that, as their prosperity progresses, they have an obligation in justice to share it with the workers who work for them.
Who stopped them from doing it before?
Now, Sir, I cannot find it in me to resent Deputy Burke's intervention, because I am conscious of not having been guiltless myself, in extenuation of which I direct to your attention that on the first day I sat in this debate for four hours, on yesterday I sat for 14 hours, and to-day I have sat for nine hours. Fifty-four speeches have been made upon this Estimate, and I confess that I was not born a patient man—and we cannot be other than what God made us. I glory in the fact that there were 54 speeches made. This is one of the last free Parliaments in the world. God keep it so. I do not think Deputy Smith did himself much credit in speaking for four hours, but he had the right to do that if he wanted to, and there is something glorious in the knowledge that there is a Ceann Comhairle presiding over our proceedings who will defend that right and maintain it, whether the Deputy who does speak for four hours sits on the Front Bench or in the least significant seat this House provides.
If I have been, on occasion, less placid than the Chair would have wished, I must plead in extenuation nearly 30 hours' listening, with an introduction of four hours by Deputy Smith, whose peroration on the first day was: "I am a wonderful man, there is no doubt about it, and there is not a member of this Party of mine who does not believe it. That is the main thing about it." When he got up again for another two hours the next day, he said it was a source of amazement to him that the radio did not report anything he said and the evening paper did not print anything he said—and when you read the Official Report since, is it any wonder, when they tried to make out of that something to put on the radio or in the evening paper, do the best they could, they could make neither head nor tail of it?
Some charitable soul, sitting up overnight with a wet towel around his head, endeavoured to make something of it for the morning paper and, to the eternal credit of the Press, I must say that, apart from some of his wilder extravagances, it did appear at least coherent, which it most unquestionably was not for those who heard him. I plead again, in extenuation, that I was constrained to listen to lamentations for the decline in the number of calves, from the greatest calf butcher in history, Deputy Dr. Ryan. There is no man whose arms are more deeply steeped in the blood of calves than Deputy Dr. Ryan. I then was obliged to listen to a Fianna Fáil T.D. up there who worked himself into a passion because the neighbouring woman could get only 1/9 or 2/- for her farmers' butter. In the next breath he accused me of having started a black market in butter at 3/6 per lb., and thought it was nothing wonderful to say these two things in two consecutive breaths. Then I had to listen to Deputy Walsh spluttering about the value of the fat cattle that went to the Continent last year and that compared with the fats that were sent to England, the reason being that his own colleague, Deputy Smith, went over to London last November and after great craving and begging there got the British Minister for Agriculture to increase the price of fat cattle by 5d. a lb., on the strict understanding that it would be cut to 4d. on the 1st of March. When the increase was given the fats went to England. They had been sitting on the land because they could not get out, and it was because they could not get out that Deputy Smith went to London last autumn.
Now, I want to deal categorically and exhaustively with the measure of my offending according to Fianna Fáil. I understand it comes down to the glass-houses, the inspectors and the farm buildings scheme. These are my principal crimes, I understand. I sometimes think they are mad because they must know I have the files and the documents to answer them. Do they think I am a fool or that I am going to allow them to blackguard or misrepresent me when I have the particulars here in front of me? A time must come, sooner or later, when they will so exhaust my patience that I will read out the whole file. That is what I am going to do now in regard to the glass-house scheme. Connemara is dying about the glass-house scheme. Poor Deputy Smith and Deputy Ryan and their lovely glass-house scheme! What is the history of the glass-house scheme? I will tell the House. It begins with a letter, "A Chara", and then, of course, it is all in English. Next, Proinnsias Mac Aogáin drops a hint to the then Minister for Agriculture that he would appear to be overlooking his duties and making "a slight suggestion that he should invest a considerable sum of money in building glass-houses in Connemara". After a great deal of excogitation in the Department, An tAire Talmhaiochta replies on the 25th June, 1946, as follows:—
"Dear Frank,
You wrote me last September about a scheme for glass-house culture in Gaeltacht districts with particular reference to the growing of tomatoes and I replied to you giving you my opinion on the scheme a few days afterwards and promised to get the observations of the Department.
I expressed the opinion in my letter to you last September that outside tomatoes the prospects were much less hopeful. I still think there is a small market for cucumbers. We tried some years ago to encourage the production of grapes by putting on a tariff against the imported crop. We got no response and the tariff was dropped. The Dublin market is very sensitive as regards peaches. The opportunity for expansion of peach-growing can be dismissed as negligible.
The full merits of the scheme could, therefore, be assessed at a capital expenditure of £400,000 to £500,000 benefiting 1,000 growers with the possibility that these 1,000 producers would after a few years need a permanent subsidy to keep them in production and the strong probability that the full capital expenditure would never be repaid. If your committee think that we should, notwithstanding, proceed I am prepared to ask the Department to go ahead.
Yours sincerely."
There is no "mise le meas" in that letter.
Here is the technical opinion given to the Department on the 10th September, 1946:—
"The arguments which can be advanced in support of the scheme are, we find, few and unconvincing whilst the objections are many and seemingly overwhelming. A most important point for consideration is whether in view of the relatively small number of farmers to benefit an ambitious scheme involving such a considerable expenditure of public funds would be justified in view of the attendant risks of failure and loss to the State."
That was in 1946. Then the business went to sleep for a year, but it was dug up again. I next find that:—
"The Minister had before him an officer's record of the conference held on the 12th instant in which the scheme was discussed in detail. He said that he had little hope that this scheme would be a success if the Department had to impose conditions in regard to the repayment of cost of the houses as contemplated at conference referred to. He went on to say that in his opinion it was far more preferable to be prepared to lose entirely the cost of the erection of these houses rather than to impose conditions which would result in making it almost impossible to get people to take them up or if they are taken up to have the conditions such as would impair the success of the scheme. He directed, therefore, that the Department should envisage the erection of these houses almost as a free gift and that for a number of years at least the owners should receive the total proceeds of the tomato crop less such expenditure as would be incurred in supervising the scheme and marketing the produce."
That was a very encouraging forecast.
Twelve months later up she bobs again on the 20th June, 1947, but this time there is an interesting addendum: "The Minister for Finance is to be kept fully informed through the private secretary to the Minister for Agriculture of progress and development." It becomes increasingly clear that every time this comes up to the Department of Agriculture it is put to bed, and every time they put it to bed the Minister for Finance digs it out again.
Then we proceed to the stage in which we are to acquire the land for the central station. In Knock-Carraroe area it was found on investigation, however, that there was only one site of approximately half an acre that was really suitable. Following negotiation, we secured this site at the rate of £400 per acre. It is nice to keep the wheel turning in Carraroe. But not to be outdone, we went to Gortahork and we located a suitable three-quarters of an acre there, and we took it for a 25-year lease at an annual rate of £20 a year. As long as people can get £20 a year for three-quarters of an acre of land in Gortahork there is no need for tomato houses.
That is the position with which I was confronted when I came into office. As far as I could find out, the general impression in my Department, as far as expert opinion was concerned, was that there was no prospect whatever of these people being able to earn on these tomatoes sufficient money to pay back the capital commitments for which they made themselves liable under the agreement. The amount, I think, was £150 in respect of each house constructed. I foresaw a situation in which, when the time came for the people to pay it back, they would not be able to do so, and instead of conferring a benefit on each of them they were being saddled with a burden under which they had been urged to go. I did not think it was just to allow a situation to develop in which, to my mind, they would seriously embarrass themselves, and I recommended that the scheme be stopped. Father Moran came up here and shouted at me very loudly and I shouted at him. Next, Father Eaton came along. Father Eaton is a young curate there. He said to me: "Minister, these people, rightly or wrongly, believe that they have a claim in natural justice to the performance of what they understood to be a promise of a Minister of State to carry out the undertakings they had been given." Rightly or wrongly, I replied: "Father Eaton, if these people believe that they have a claim in natural justice to the performance of what they understood to be the promise of a Minister for State, that is an argument I cannot resist. Communicate with those persons who did not get a glass-house built for them as a result of the direction I have given and tell them that if they write in and say that they believe that in natural justice that they have a claim to the performance of the promise of a Minister of State, I will direct a glass-house to be built for them." Most of them wrote in, with the exception, I think, of three, and the houses were built.
The Deputy from Connemara and Deputy Breslin seemed to suggest that consequent on that I did my best to frustrate the scheme. That is an unworthy kind of misrepresentation. Far from that being so, I directed the officer appointed by my predecessor to supervise the scheme to be whole time with explicit instructions that nothing in his power to do should be left undone in order to make this a success if it could be made a success, and if any additional help or alteration should be brought into operation in order to make it a success, not to hesitate to let us know, and if it was humanly possible to do it, it would be done. The same applied to Gortahork. The matter that must be rectified now is the sale of the tomatoes. I got offers for them and I do not think those offers were fair. I would be obliged to the Deputies from these constituencies if they could do anything to get better and fairer prices. If I cannot sell them locally I will bring them to the Dublin market if need be. One thing is certain, however, I am not going to let anyone get away with the idea that because the fruit happens to be in Connemara or Gortahork, it can be bought at rubbish prices, because it can not. If necessary I will bring it to Dublin and sell it in the usual way on commission in the market as any other dealer would sell it. But it should be possible to sell it in Galway or Sligo or in towns in Donegal and get a reasonable price. It would be better to sell it locally as it would save on transport, but it will not be sold at rubbish prices. If any distributor thinks he has got a soft bargain there let him think again.
If the Minister will permit me I would like to ask one question. From listening to what he has said, it might be thought that the Minister would have some trouble with people who have glass-houses. I understand, however, that there is a clause in the agreement between the Department of Agriculture and the grower, the man upon whose land the glass-house is, that in the event of his not paying, the Department has the right to remove the structure, and in the event of the grower saying that he does not want to go ahead, he can ask the Department to remove it.
I think I can say to the Deputy, and that I may say it with the full approval of the Government, that the people engaged in this scheme are not going to be salted. We will do our level best to make a success of it. My advice to them is to do their best to make a success of it, but that they are not going to be left in a state of serious loss as a result of its success or failure. That is what both the Minister of the Deputy's Party and my Party intend whether it is in the agreement or not.
That is the story of the tomatoes. There is nothing I have done which, if I had to do it all again, I would not do exactly as before. I think the scheme is a thoroughly rotten one and I wanted to protect as many as I could from becoming involved in it, but when it was represented to me that they believed they had a claim in natural justice to the performance of the promise of a Minister of State I could not resist that representation and accordingly I changed my mind. If it is a crime to yield to that kind of argument, I committed that crime of changing my mind under the coercion of an argument which I felt I could not deny. If I had to do the same thing at the present moment I would do it without the slightest hesitation.
The next iniquity I am accused of is the question of inspectors. I have said 100 times that I strenuously object to the system of sending out inspectors to snoop around our people's homes telling them to do this or that. A vicious piece of misrepresentation was started by which the Fianna Fáil Party sought to create the impression that the strictures that I passed on that system were aimed, not at the inspectors who considered themselves or who wished to think of themselves as the masters of our people, but at the instructors of the Department of Agriculture, the overseers and assistant overseers who have moved among the people and always helped them in their work. It is true technically that they are all known in my Department as inspectors, but the best way, perhaps, to express the difference between them is that it is the same as the difference between "múinteoir" and "cigire", and it is the "cigire" I am talking about. But I want to say that when we spoke, when I spoke, in terms of stringent condemnation of the system of sending inspectors here and sending them there, as I have said on many occasions, those strictures should not fall on the inspectors themselves, but upon the system that has called them. For that we in this House are responsible. We made the law, we sent them out. I do not believe that they enjoy, any more than any of us would, breaking in on their neighbours' land and interfering with their neighbours' day-to-day work, but we told them to do it.
It was the system we created and by which we sent them out that I have always been concerned to denounce and destroy. I am glad to think that the day has come when I have the power to destroy it and, please God, it will never raise its head again. But let me add this. Tillage inspectors have been appointed every year since compulsory tillage came into force. For the last five years when June and July came all the tillage inspectors were dismissed. I would not permit the dismissal of a single one of them until I first found out who were the married men amongst them and recommended that every married man should be kept on as long as it was possible to keep him. The second category was those men who had qualifications, who had shown a desire to get on and improve themselves. For the remainder of single men without family responsibilities the rule was to apply rigidly— last man in, first man out. No one was to be dismissed until we published an advertisement in the papers asking anyone who wanted a land steward or a farm manager to send in an application so that we might recommend some of these young men for interview with a view to getting them employment rather than kicking them out the door. These are the facts. Yet I am represented as not looking after their welfare having a personal animus against them and desiring in any way I could to humiliate them before the public. In fact I am the only Minister for Agriculture who has ever concerned himself about their welfare or sought to secure employment for them. I am continuing at the present moment to do all I can in that direction and shall continue to do so.
I want to say something about farm buildings. I am told that I came in here to mislead the House and that my concern was falsely to suggest that the reason why the farm buildings scheme was being held over for the constructional work until next year was because there was a shortage of supplies. The most strident accuser was Deputy Smith. The only difference between Deputy Smith and me in regard to this matter is that I came in and told the House the truth and that Deputy Smith came in with exactly the same information and told them what was not true. Deputy Lemass is now as quiet as a mouse. Why is he as quiet as a mouse? Because I have a letter from him forbidding Deputy Smith to put a stone upon a stone in 1948, and I am going to read it:
"9th December, 1947.
"Dear Paddy,
"A reply is being sent by this post to your Department's minute of 4th December regarding your scheme of grants for the improvement of farm buildings. You will see that the reply sounds a note of warning regarding cement supplies. Though the cement factories are in full production the demand is more than the supply and difficulty is being experienced in getting cement for the building and engineering work at present in progress. The shortage will, I fear, be more than a temporary one. We shall try to make supplies available but it would be impossible for us to give you an assurance that you will get your full requirements for your scheme even on the restricted basis which you propose for 1948-49."
I am held up as an iniquitous criminal for coming in and telling the House that the Minister for Local Government had stopped all building except the building of houses for residence and had bespoken all the supplies of cement available; that, in addition to that, we had a strike in the cement factories—I did not know that when I spoke first; that is only a recent development;— that I was warned by the Minister for Local Government, and rightly warned, that he has first claim on all cement; that after that certain essential industrial requirements were necessary and that there were certain categories of work for which cement would not be released. Like a simpleton, I came into the House and told the truth. Wait until you hear what the former Minister for Agriculture told the House. He is not such an innocent as I am. He knows how to put a gloss upon it. Listen to this evidence of frank, open, ingenuous, Parliamentary procedure. Deputy P. J. Burke on the 11th December asked the Minister for Agriculture when he intended to introduce the scheme for grants for the improvement and reconstruction of farm outhouses and in reply the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Smith, said:—
"A scheme for the improvement of farm buildings has been prepared by my Department and I hope to be in a position to announce it soon."
When we get these pink documents the way they are made up is this: There is the question and there is the answer which we read out and here are the secret bits. If they come at you again, here is your ammunition. Down at the foot of this, with a star in front of it, is this:
"The Department of Industry and Commerce has now replied pointing out that progress under the proposed scheme must be restricted to the rate justified by cement supplies, which are expected to be barely sufficient in 1948/49 for the continuance of building and engineering work on the present scale."
The ammunition was kept in the pouch that time. Maybe Deputy Burke had something whispered in his ear behind the Ceann Comhairle's chair, but the voters in the impending general election did not hear it.
Now a great miracle took place about this farm buildings scheme; one of the greatest miracles since Moses struck the rock. This farm buildings scheme, after two years' fermentation, suddenly blossomed forth from the head of the Minister for Agriculture. Do you know when the egg was hatched, when the bird stepped forth? About three weeks after the by-elections. Then the correspondence was resumed. Then the scheme was formulated. Deputies know the procedure of getting a scheme formulated, circulated to the Department, commented upon by the Department and referred to the Government. Even the youngest Minister knows the dreary tedium of that procedure. But, my gracious me, the procedure was streamlined on this occasion. It went through like a knife through a cheese. Do you know the day the advertisement was published? The 31st December. I do not believe that in the history of Great Britain or Ireland for the last 400 years was there ever a Government notice published on the 31st December. But this had to be published as quick as lightning. Why? So that the forms could be stereotyped and sent out to every agricultural overseer and every assistant agricultural overseer throughout the country to tell them that we were going to rebuild every barn and hay shed and everything else on the holding of anybody who did what was necessary on the fatal day. When that advertisement was published there was neither staff, organisation, plan nor idea of how they were going to handle the work that was inevitably going to develop.
If they had got back.
I think it is just as well to let matters of that kind rest. It is disgusting for one Minister to be reciting the peccadilloes of another and God knows that I have not said anything sensational about that scheme since I came into office. I said I could not go on with it this year. Is that not so? But there is a limit. I have been jibed at and I have been held up to ridicule of a fair and reasonable kind from time to time. However, when the whole debate of the Agricultural Estimate, 27 hours, is devoted to proving that I am a fraud and a liar—when in my hands is resting the proof of the fact that my only sin is that I told the Deputies the truth while my predecessor in office came in and told them what he thought it would be prudent to tell them—I think, in justice to myself and my colleagues, I ought to speak out. It is a vicious, mean thing to go round the country misleading decent, simple people. That is what Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party have been doing. They have been out to tell the people that the farm improvements scheme is abandoned. It is not. Every single penny appropriated for that scheme will be spent on it—as much more next year and the year after until every penny that is necessary to reclaim every acre of the land of this country that requires reclamation has been spent.
I am not going to promise and I cannot promise that it will be done like that if we have not the money. We must do it in stages year by year with our resources. I do say, however, that I am quite satisfied that if Marshall Aid came to us by way of grant and we were allowed to use that grant money inside our economy a great part of it could be added to our annual resources to expedite the work. That is why I said that with Marshall Aid it could be done in five years but that if we have to depend on our own resources we may have to spread it out over 25 years. But whether it is 25 years or five years, if we remain in office, we will keep at it until the work is done. In saying that let me record that when we finish that work it will be right and proper to look back and remember that, by whatever inspiration or advice or encouragement he may have got, it was Deputy Dr. Ryan who started it.
If I heard the Minister correctly he stated that all this money will be spent this year and that every acre of land in the country would be drained. But he said we cannot do so if we have not the money. He then went on to allude to the Marshall Plan and to the money that was expected from it. Did I hear the Minister aright?
If I was satisfied that the Deputy was intervening in good faith I should be inclined to give him a more civil reply. The Deputy must excuse me if I sometimes suspect him of intervening not in good faith and if I give him a sharp reply. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he is now intervening in good faith. We will spend every penny that is appropriated now. We will appropriate next year, I hope, the same amount, if not a larger one, and the next year and the next year and the next year and as many years as we are the Government of the country until the work is done. If into that picture there should be injected the Marshall Aid money then we will be able to undertake a very much larger scheme so that the work to be done will be done more rapidly and that the whole area of the country will be restored to productivity much sooner than it can be if we only have our own resources to depend upon.
The rate depends upon the money the Minister gets.
Yes. Two ghosts are now laid low. I shall now deal with the specific questions that were put to me. Great play was made here to-day about what I said at the ploughing dinner. This is what I did say—let us get it accurate. I said that but for the fact that I believe in individual liberty I would make it illegal to plough land with a horse in this country. Is that clear? If anybody misunderstands it I shall repeat it. The agricultural worker has a minimum wage throughout the greater part of this country of 55/- a week. Frankly I am ashamed to name it. Fifty-five shillings a week! He is the lowest paid worker in the English-speaking world and that is something of which I am bitterly ashamed. There is no means that I know of to get for that highly-skilled craftsman an adequate wage if we do not put into his hand the modern implement that will enable him to use to the limit of his capacity the gift that God gave him. The industrial worker is working with the machines and implements of 1948. The agricultural worker is using the same horse and the same plough that was being dragged through the soil of this country 80 years ago. Eighty years ago! He is being paid in 1948 on the basis of a performance capacity which his great-grandfather had 70 years ago. That man working a fair day will plough half an Irish acre with a pair of horses and a plough. Put him on a Ferguson or a Fordson tractor and he will plough three acres of the same land. Now, if he does six times as much work simply by changing the implement that is put into his hands surely to God there is nobody in this House or this country who will suggest that he will still get 55/- a week. Am I right or am I wrong?
Now do you see why I said that but for the fact that I believe in individual liberty I would make it illegal to plough land with a hand-plough and a horse? Was I not right?
Did the Minister say anything else?
Why should we insist? Why should we glory in the fact that those who work the land are compelled to use antediluvian methods and are paid antediluvian wages?
What about the stick tied to the donkey's tail?
Do you want the donkey still put under the plough?
Now, Deputy Smith referred to a story that was published in the Irish Times about my intention of taking all the controls off the bacon. I am a great believer, when a fight is over, in letting the dust die down— forget it and get on with the job. But I am not in favour of letting a bone go with any dog; and, if Deputy Smith wants to open that up again, I shall give him his answer. If Deputy Smith wants any information about that I would invite him to go and have a chat with Deputy MacEntee, because he knows a lot about it. I know a lot about it, too, that Deputy MacEntee does not know I know. Deputy Smith, poor fellow, never knew what was going on at all.
When I came into office there was a certain warrior in this country and I knew well that he had been forcing up the price of pigs to create an impossible situation and, at the same time, to draw into his bacon factory the bulk of the pigs to be slaughtered. All his competitors were saying: "What the devil is X on to; he is paying 210/- and 215/- for pork and the fixed price for bacon is 200/-; what in the world is he up to?" X knew well what he was up to. I was not long in office until there was a hullabaloo; the poor bacon curers and the pork butchers were "kilt" and the solution of the whole thing would be to take all the controls off and in about a month everything would settle itself. But in that month one particular warrior would have disposed of 4,000 cwts of bacon at 5/- per lb. It was that same warrior that pedalled that article that appeared in the Irish Times, first to the Irish Press, but “old faithful” would not publish it; he was too cute. Then it was brought around to the Irish Independent and they would not publish it; and out it came in the Irish Times. There was great hope that the golconda was about to open up for the warrior that had the nest egg, but he got a golconda that he was not expecting. I shifted the nest egg and I distributed it over the rest of the curers in the country; and I met him—as the bulk of the curers wanted to do. I found the vast majority of the curers honest, straightforward men, just as anxious as I was to put an end then and there to the rotten transactions that were going on and which were attributable to a very small minority of their number. Every pound of that bacon came out of the nest egg and was freely distributed. I am glad to tell the House that I was able to say to the bulk of the curers: “If I leave the fair operation of this business to yourselves to run it voluntarily will you give me your word of honour that, whatever bacon we can gather in, will be equitably and honestly distributed?” That has been in operation for about six weeks and it has operated fairly and justly and honourably and, I believe, not infrequently at considerable expense to the curers themselves.
I think it is due to them that I should say that and I think they have done that in the belief that I am doing my best to increase the supplies of pigs and feeding-stuffs and that they will benefit from that when their trade returns to normal; and that it is up to them to lend a hand until we can restore the pig industry. I am glad to be able to report to the House that there were more pigs on offer in Clonmel last market day than have been there for the past ten years. There are certain other indelicate statistics I could give but I think propriety requires me to give them individually and privately to Deputy O'Leary. I may say, however, that they are of a rather reassuring character and give promise of an early bacon increase.
The next matter to which I want to turn is the suggestion that I am entirely indifferent to the price of milk. I am not. But here is an issue joined—if there is an issue—between me and some of the representatives of the dairy farmers. I said to them: "Satisfy Oireachtas Éireann that the cows kept by suppliers of milk to dairies or to creameries have a reasonable milk output of from 500 to 600 gallons and I will request the Government, of which I am a member to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the people producing milk from these cows will get a fair price for it; but I am not going to ask our people or our Government to give a price for milk in order that you improvident farmers, whose cows yield 300 gallons per lactation, will get a good profit, because it cannot be done." It is a waste of land. It is a waste of a farmer's skill and it is a waste of time to try to operate the dairying industry on 300-gallon cows.
I have asked the co-operative creamery societies throughout the country to set up cow-testing associations and to come to me with a plan. If I can possibly help them, or facilitate them in getting them money, or maintaining them, I will, in order that we can get a pretty general average of between 500 and 600 gallons of milk from every cow whose milk is going to a creamery; and I will guarantee, if we arrive at that point, the Government of which I am a member will see that the farmers who keep those cows get a price for their milk which will entitle them to carry on with a reasonable margin of profit for the work they do.
In that connection I want to say two things. I am ashamed of my life of the conditions under which the supervisors of the cow-testing associations work. They are doing invaluable work for the dairying industry of the country and for the agricultural industry as a whole. They are scandalously paid. When I met them in Mallow three or four months ago I promised them that I would look into their case and try to work out a scheme which would enable us to employ them on reasonable terms. I have to confess that I have not yet been able to get around to that. It was not for want of the will; it was for want of the way. I was not physically able to do it. It is something which we ought to do. It is something I do not see we can do without the help of the co-operative societies. I wish that I could find one co-operative society that would come to me and say: "We will require every supplier sending milk to our creamery to join a cow-testing association." If I can find one society to do that I will ask the Government to authorise me to give them generous financial assistance so as to enable them to employ supervisors on a fair and reasonable basis, to look after those cattle.
Some of these are married men with families. They earn a few pounds a week. They are barely able to live, struggling around on bicycles in all sorts of weather and, as a result, chucking the job. I regard that as a great misfortune. It is a matter in which I would be very glad to have the help of some co-operative society in order to bring it to an end so that by that example others might be induced to do something along the same lines.
Now, a lot of people have said that one of the difficulties about the creamery business is that you cannot get fellows and girls to milk cows. I think that that is true and I do not blame them. Why should they take work sitting under a cow and getting slapped in the face with the cow's tail if they can get a good job in the town? If we want people to do agricultural work we have to make that agricultural work as agreeable as rival forms of occupation. It is perfectly possible —there is nothing marvellous or extravagant about it—to aim at providing any dairy farmer with 15 or more cows with a portable milking machine that can be pulled on to the field where the cows are and have the cows milked by machinery on the field. There is no need to have any elaborate installation or anything else. It is as common as kiss my hand all over England.
I do not believe there is a single cow in New Zealand milked by hand—not one—and many of them are 12, 14 or 16-cow men. It is a detail to which people do not attach much importance, but there is not a single cow in New Zealand stripped by hand, because it was discovered there, under the pressure of shortage of labour, that if cows are accustomed to be milked by machine from the first lactation, stripping by hand becomes unnecessary. That is a detail, but it is that kind of thing that makes all the difference between agricultural work being slavery for a young person and analogous to regular industrial employment, which permits of people having regular hours and a reasonable respite.
Deputy Dunne was very wicked when he was talking about agricultural labourers. I agree with Deputy Dunne. I think agricultural labourers ought to have a weekly half-holiday and seven days' holiday every year. But the majority of the people do not think that—and this is a democratic country. I am doing what I can to persuade the majority of the people to come to our point of view. I am trying to do what I can to encourage the majority of the people to put in an installation and equipment that will make such a proposal practical politics, because if we do not do it young people will not stay on the land and we may make up our minds to do these things when it is too late and the young people are gone off the land.
But there is no use in Deputy Dunne and I believing that we can take the whole population by the throat and make them do what we want. We shall have to persuade them that we are right and that they would be wise and prudent to accept our view. I am doing my part; let Deputy Dunne do his. But he does not help when, in order to make Deputy MacEntee's flesh creep, he says "I would be in favour of municipalising the milk supply". There are a whole lot of men in this Dáil and, when you say that, their hair stands on end and they say "He is a Bolshie". By municipalising I do not know what he means, and I do not believe that he does either. Does he mean that the municipality is to own 15,000 cows and milk them morning and evening?
Might I be allowed to explain? I meant to convey that I believe the true solution for the present scandalous state of the milk supply in the City of Dublin is the municipalisation of the distribution of milk. There is nobody here appreciates more keenly than I do the difficulty that would be entailed by the municipalisation of production.
Now I know what the Deputy means, but I have not such a love for bureaucracy as to believe that that is going to work. I do not give a fiddle-de-dee who distributes the milk, provided the people get it clean and at a low price. I know of no way in which I can get milk into the poorer sections in Lower Dominick Street or Gardiner Street in a clean and cheap condition except by pasteurising. In theory, if we have tuberculin tested grade A milk herds we ought to get milk without any tuberculosis or contamination; but if, in effect, we succeed in getting that, it would be cheaper to give the people mulled claret because the cost of producing that high standard of perfect cleanliness would be prohibitive. The precautions necessary involve expense which would bring the milk to such a price that the people could not afford it and it would be absolutely out of the question.
By careful supervision we must do the best we can to see that milk is handled in as clean a way as possible. We must pasteurise it to see that no tubercle bacilli shall survive and reach little children. One of the most important things is to make illegal the cardboard cap for the milk bottle. I would require every milk distributor to use a paper cap for the reason that I have often seen fellows in the back streets of Dublin coming up with a tray of empty bottles which they have collected in exchange for full bottles; they fill them out of a can, take a handful of discs out of their pockets, and pop one on each bottle. If they have to put a wire and paper cap on each bottle it will tighten them if they do not carry a machine with which to do it.
The best method of all is one I expect the new milk distributing body to employ, and that is to use nonreturnable, destructible cardboard containers. These cannot be used again and they must be thrown away. That is the best way. I can assure the Deputy that municipalisation will not get rid of much, because the municipaliser is as liable to go up the back street and fill the bottles out of his neighbour's can as is the base, bloody and brutal capitalist.
I do not want to leave the inspectors without putting on record that I regard the agricultural instructors in the service of my Department and in the service of the county committees of agriculture, together with the overseers, the assistant overseers and the other instructors, as some of the most valuable servants this community has and, incidentally, some of the worst paid.
Deputy Cogan complained that people find it hard to get fertilisers in sufficient quantities on credit. I am amazed to hear that. I have been for 25 years a shopkeeper in a small country town, Ballaghaderreen, and I had to put a shingle out calling on the people to buy manures from me on credit. Any fellow I believed had the intention— even the intention—of paying, I took a flying leap at him. Some of the best intentions misfired when it came to paying, but even if I believed they had the intention, I would give them the manure on credit. To their eternal credit be it said that 99 per cent. of them paid. Some were a bit tough and slow, but they paid in the heel of the hunt.
It was an expensive system of credit.
Devil a much I got out of it. I got 3d. a cwt. out of super, cash or credit—3d. on super and 6d. on fertiliser, and it was not philantrophy. If I did not give it my neighbour would and I wanted to prevent him going to the neighbouring shop. The same is true of all parts of rural Ireland. Where there is a commodity that everybody buys, competition is the boy to keep the price down. If they come in for super they will buy tea. In the country we do not go in for these grand shops where you have one place for super, another for tea and another for silk stockings. But we are hopeful that when a man comes in for a bag of "super" he may buy a pair of silk stockings, a lb. of tea or maybe a teaset before he goes out.
Deputy de Valera intervened and cautioned me that, although I was Minister for Agriculture, I owed a duty to the citizens of the State and that I must be very careful not to push up the price of agricultural produce so as to leave the people of the towns and cities hungry and without the things they should have—the white-collar workers. And this was going on within the ten minutes of Deputy Smith having torn passion to tatters and having advanced against me horse, foot and artillery, because I had not raised the price of everything high enough!
Somebody asked me about the user of the Clare deposit of phosphate. I should be glad to use the Clare deposit of phosphate if I knew how. So far as I can find out, scientific research has established that the only means of using it or activating it is by raising it by some chemical process to a temperature of 380 degrees centigrade. If anyone will propound a procedure whereby I can raise it to 380 degrees centigrade, without an expenditure which will make it dearer than gold dust by the time I have made "super" of it, I shall be glad to know of it. I exhort any private enterprise which thinks that Clare phosphates can be activated without undue expense to turn their attention to it and exploit it so that it can be used for the benefit of the country. I understand there is a prospect of developing a considerable lime deposit in the neighbourhood of the Clare phosphates. If there is I shall be delighted to hear of it.
I deal with Deputy Madden's trouble by saying that if he will produce the 500-gallon cow I shall go on campaigning to get a price for milk now and for all time which will yield a reasonable profit to the farmer. A Deputy said that the £2,250,000 subsidy for butter is not a subsidy to the farmers of this country. If the community as a whole will release butter and say to the farmers to go and sell where they like, we shall sell it on the foreign market without a penny subsidy. The subsidy paid on butter is a subsidy to reduce the price of butter to our own people; but if our own people do not want to eat butter, if our own people say to the dairy farmers of the country that they are to sell their butter where they can get the best price, I can sell all the creamery butter elsewhere without a subsidy and not reduce the price of milk by one farthing.
Deputy Sweetman mentioned a case where he said some local officer of a county committee was pursuing an investigation regarding aphosphorosis and that we had stopped him. The Deputy is mistaken in that because we provided a grant of £500 for further investigation in that area. If that grant is not sufficient more money will be provided to carry on the inquiry to a conclusion.
Somebody said that a great solution of the milk production problem was to get proven bulls, that what has happened is that the Livestock Breeding Act has broken down and that beef-type bulls are being used, with the result that the average milk yield of cattle is declining. That is quite a mistaken view but I agree that the only way by which you can be certain that you will raise the milk yield of your cattle is to use only proven bulls. The difficulty of that is that you cannot satisfy yourself that a bull is a proven bull until he is seven years old. You cannot start using him until he is over a year and you cannot know whether he is a beast of a quality to increase the milk yield until his granddaughter calves. By that time the bull may be sold off because of the difficulty that most of our farms are small farms and a seven-year-old bull is a pretty unmanageable beast on a small holding where you have not got a large staff. Many bulls of that age get cross and are hard to manage. All I can do is my best.
I cannot shorten time. I can only tell the House of a plan which I hope will produce results in time and it is this. We have a place called Chantilly where we have a farm and keep imported beasts for a while and rest them before they are sent out to the country. I am trying out a plan by which Chantilly will constitute a considerable dairy farm in which there will be from 40 to 50 tested cows. Each bull we bring in we shall mate with a certain number of these cows and record the results. When these bulls are sent down the country we shall keep track of them. If the granddaughters of a bull prove to be the progeny of a bull possessing the quality of an increased milk yield we shall recall that bull. If artificial insemination proves to be as satisfactory and as successful a procedure as it seems likely to develop, we shall bring that bull to an artificial insemination centre for the three or four years of its useful life that remain and the maximum number of cows will be put into calf by what we know to be a proven bull having the faculty of passing on the milk yield quality. It may take time to start and we may not get any more than three proven bulls in each year, but let us assume that it is possible to get 1,000 services from each bull. In the first year you would have three, in the second year six and the third year nine and you then reach the point where you have 9,000 dairy cattle served by proven bulls. That plan can be extended interminably but it will take time to work out. In the meantime, the farm can be used as a dairy farm to provide Dublin with liquid milk and as a means of measuring whether the prices fixed for milk sold in Dublin are fair and equitable, bearing in mind the costings of a well-run dairy farm supplying milk to the city.
Deputy Giles spoke of the potentialities of Muinntir na Tíre and asked me to assist the formation of co-operative societies and activities of that kind among rural communities. Anything I can do to assist in the formation of co-operative societies of that description I shall gladly do whether it be in equipping them with farm machinery, or helping them to build a hall. Any activity of a social character like that I shall be delighted to help. There is nothing further I can do. I cannot be expected to go down to a parish in the country, take the people, as it were, by the back of the neck and tell them that if they do not form a co-operative society they will not be allowed to live but they have only got to ask for any reasonable assistance which they require to form a co-operative society and I shall ask the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, as well as Muinntir na Tíre, to help them, but I have not got their help yet. They may come along with a plan soon.
Deputy Giles rightly mentioned the rings which exploited the farmers of this country. I have "bust" a couple of them and any more I can find I will "bust", or "bust" in the attempt. I pledge my word to that—every blooming one of them. Somebody complained about the tanglers meeting the cattle out the road. I never saw a tangler coming out the road that I did not thank God for the sight. Whenever the tanglers are coming out the road, there is a good fair. No one but a fool ever sold his beast outside the fair green if he met a tangler on the road. The road is a lonesome place, if there is a bad fair, but it is like an election meeting with tanglers, if prices are rising.
Deputy Hickey spoke about the Cork milk situation. I am blowed if I know what the Cork milk situation is. Every second person from Cork tells me a very different story about the Cork milk situation. I will make an offer: Let the Deputies for Cork City and any Deputy whose constituency contains part of an area supplying Cork City or part of an area that wants to supply Cork City, come together and then come to me, and, whatever they agree upon, I will do.
Did the Cork Milk Board not send you a map telling you the area they wanted?
Do not draw me, because there are some people who send me resolutions and sign them, and then meet me behind the door and say: "Look, do not mind the resolution." If the Deputies will come and meet me, Deputy McGrath with them——
Did Cork Corporation not ask you to do it?
I am not going to be cross-examined about it.
You are not going to get away with that stuff.
If the Deputy wants to do his job by his constituents, he will meet his colleagues representative of that area and whatever they agree is in the best interests of the people living in the area, I will do, if it is physically possible to do it.
We will do that.
I asked Deputies who are interested in this matter to remember that I have a certain duty to the people who consume milk and that every time I put a farthing on the gallon, somebody has to pay more. I beg of Deputies to remember this, that, when the price of milk goes up, it is highly unlikely that I will cut down the supply coming into my house. It is the resident of Dominick Street and Lower Gloucester Street who must cut his supply.
It is a serious matter when the supply of milk it not available.
It is a shocking thing, and it is doubly shocking that the area of supply should be restricted and that anybody in Cork, rich or poor, should be unable to get enough milk for his family. I was not aware of it. I did not know it to be the case. I believed that the reverse was the case. Open confession is good for the soul, and, as soon as ever the Deputies can come to me, they will be welcome.
Is the production of milk not down by millions of gallons?
The Deputy need not worry about that. Just come and tell me the area, and no more than drowning the English people in eggs, I will drown you with milk. I may add, to reassure the Deputy, that both observations are figurative.
With regard to the sewage compost business, that is my old friend, Sir Albert Howard. When ever I meet a member of the Oxford Group, or a believer in Sir Albert Howard's theories, I can always tell them after the third sentence he utters what he belongs to. Both these beliefs seem to have some kind of mystic charm for the people who get bitten by them. To be quite frank, I think there is a lot of nonsense talked about sewage conservation, but, very prudently, my predecessor said: "Let us refer the whole thing to a competent body of experts to examine the whole business up and down. If it is worth doing we will do it and, if it is not, we will not." That committee has been sitting and is at present working. As soon as I get its report I will send a copy to the Lord Mayor of Cork, the Lord Mayor of Dublin and to any other municipality interested, and I shall be glad to discuss with them whether they wish to process the material themselves and sell it, or to invite the Department to collaborate with them in the undertaking.
Deputy Hughes spoke about the provision of ground limestone and phosphate. I have deliberately left the business of producing limestone in the hands of private enterprise, because I believe that is the way I will get it done cheapest, but the costings I have heard so far envisage a price of 16/- at the pit. I think it was Deputy Aiken or Deputy Ryan who envisaged the possibility of a contract service in which the man who ground the lime would undertake to bring it to the land and spread it for an all-in charge per acre. I think that is an extremely good idea, if we can get a sufficient number of people to undertake it.
In any case, I am glad to be able to tell the House at last that I have something concrete, instead of these hopes which trouble my friends across the House so terribly. There is one plant up in Kilkenny. It is there to see and to feel. To tell the truth, I sometimes wondered whether I would ever be able to see and feel one but there is one there. It should go into operation next month. I am hoping that a very great many more will be established and the equipment for a very large one is at present on its way from the United States. It is frightfully difficult to get delivery of this kind of machinery in Great Britain, but we have got one large plant coming from the United States for a man who is to do it, and, as soon as it comes, it will be erected, and I am not without hope that it will be grinding and distributing well before Christmas.
I need not dwell on the young farmers' clubs. I substantially agree with Deputy O'Grady's estimate. Given that they maintain their independence and are firmly resolved that neither I nor any other Minister for Agriculture will dominate or control them, they are of incalculable value to this country; but once they become the appendage of any political organisation or any Government Department, instead of being valuable, they are a menace. I do not doubt that they will be all right and I exhort them to keep that way.
I think it was Deputy Hughes who inquired what we were doing about blackleg in beet. The answer is everything that it is humanly possible to do. Glasnevin and the Sugar Company are studying the matter with all their resources, but the plain fact is that nowhere in the world has it yet been determined precisely what is the source of the disease or what is its cure. Every conceivable resource in this country, the United States and elsewhere is being employed to try to track down the source and provide a remedy. Deputy Bartley also spoke of the incidence of disease in some of the tomato plants in the houses in Connemara. There has been disease, but I can reassure the Deputy that the disease which has occurred amongst certain of the plants in the tomato houses in Connemara is a seed-borne disease, and is not one which is calculated to spread from plant to plant. It comes in the seed and the plant which grows from the particular diseased seed will die, but there is no danger that if you have two or three other plants in a hothouse, they will wilt and die subsequently. The presence of the diseased plant will not affect them.
With regard to veterinary services, we have recently had transferred to our Department all the veterinary services of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, and we are now in the process of reorganisation. The first thing I did in that regard was to ask the Government to authorise me to send the Director of Veterinary Services on a two-years' course of postgraduate study and research in the United States, Canada and South Africa, because I found that a great many of the veterinary surgeons in this country, certainly those in the service of the Department, had not had much contact with colleges outside Ireland and I felt it was necessary, if we were going to have a director of veterinary services here, that he should be familiar with all the great centres of veterinary learning in the world so that in the years that lie ahead, as he is developing the service, he can pick out one young man from this branch and another young man from that branch and send one to Canada and another to South Africa to study some particular branch of veterinary science. Thereby, we would build up a very much higher standard of veterinary learning and a very much better standard of veterinary education and administration.
While he is away, the skeleton scheme that he is working out with the deputy director will continue to develop but we may not but assume that the general scheme of veterinary services worked out during the next two or three years will be more or less of an experimental character. When the director returns to assume permanent occupancy of his position, we plan to establish a permanent and growing veterinary service, the nature of which, frankly, I do not at present know, because I have not got the information requisite to form a reliable judgment and I cannot hope to have it until I have an opportunity of contacting people familiar not only with veterinary science, but with the complex problem of veterinary administration in dairy conditions and live-stock conditions, and so forth.
Therefore, one of the centres to which the veterinary director will go will be Wisconsin, which is one of the great dairy States in America, where the veterinary service is operated from the University of Wisconsin. There is also a great veterinary station in Iowa. He will spend some time there. The principal of the McDonald College, in Quebec University, is a friend of mine who will not only place the facilities of the McDonald College of Quebec at his disposal, but will introduce him to the heads of the other Veterinary Colleges in Canada. Odendaalsrust is a place which all Deputies know of. It is one of the greatest agricultural research stations in the world and a period of study there, I cannot but believe, will be of material advantage to the director in determining the proper course to be pursued in this country, both in the sphere of education and the sphere of administration in the years that lie ahead.
Deputy Lehane spoke of the maize millers' profits. They are monstrous and revolting but they will not be that long. I am happy to inform the House that the International Emergency Food Council has, for the first time, made an allocation to us of 75,000 tons of maize for animal feed. That is a very important new development.
My predecessor in office had to labour under the very great difficulty of having no such allocation and having to search the markets of the world to find maize in a condition which put it outside the category of human food. It was only in such cases that he was able to purchase it and use it for animal feed. That he was able to get as much as he did, with the assistance of Deputy Lemass, under these extraordinarily difficult circumstances, is something for which the people ought to be duly grateful to them. This allocation makes my task easier but I am faced with the difficulty of price. Unfortunately, prices have risen in the cereal market very substantially in the last 12 months but I think they are coming down and I am not without hope that we shall be able to purchase maize. I want the House to understand very clearly that it is one thing to have maize allocated and another to get it. The allocation merely amounts to this that the international authority says: "You may buy maize now." Then you have to go and buy it and at that stage you learn what you have to pay for it.
We could buy maize to-morrow but it would cost us so dear a price that we could not afford to use it or to feed it to our live stock but I am not without hope that, with hopping and trotting, I will be able to get it yet at a price at which, having dealt effectively with the profit margin to which Deputy Lehane referred and reminding the retailers of this country of the good old-fashioned practice of selling Indian meal for 3d. a cwt. profit, we will get it to the farmer at a price which will enable him to feed it to his live stock and make a profit on his produce.
I want to tell Deputy Kinnane that it is merely malicious and mischievous to say that I do not believe in tillage. I have always stood for the policy enunciated in this House 25 long years ago—one more cow, one more sow, one more acre under the plough.
I did not say that you did not believe in it. I said that it was generally accepted that you did not believe in it.
I beg the Deputy's pardon and I will ask him to do this much publicity for me, to tell those who allege that that it is all my eye and Betty Martin plus Fianna Fáil—a thoroughly disreputable company. I have always believed in one more cow one more sow, one more acre under the plough, and 700,000 barrels of barley for Arthur Guinness, Son and Company, at a good price. The difference between me and my predecessors is that, with God's help, I will get it and, instead of having to subsidise half the land of Ireland, every acre of our land into which a plough is put will pay its own profit and nobody will have to subsidise it. It will pay the man who ploughs it a profit for his labour and he can stand independent upon it and thank nobody for the livelihood he gets out of it.
He will not have to be going around with his cap in his hand to any Fianna Fáil T.D. or any Fianna Fáil Minister begging him to give him a subsidy on that crop or a subsidy on this crop or, for the love of God, to push the price of this or that up a little higher than it is. He will sell his produce in competition with all comers and it will be better quality and make as good or better a price than what will be produced in any other country in the world.
I am sick of the doctrine that there is nothing we produce that cannot be produced better and cheaper somewhere else. That is all hog-wash. We can meet the Danes and the Dutch and all other comers in the British market and beat the tar out of them in quality and quantity, if we try. There is no bargain to which the Taoiseach's name will be put beside the Sir Stafford Cripps', by which the price provided does not recognise the fact that Irish produce is equal, grade for grade, with the best that Denmark or Holland can ever hope to produce.
I think it was Deputy Davin who said that he would not be in favour of compulsory wheat, but would be in favour of compulsory tillage. Why is it that there is one section of the community that is always presumed to be lazy, a potential criminal and in need of continual supervision to see that he does not do everybody else down? Do you go into a plumber and compel him to use solder? Do you go into a painter and insist that he put on paint? Why is it necessary to go to a farmer in order to see that he farms? If that is to be the rule, why not take over all the land of the country and hire the farmers and tell them what to do—do you plough that acre, do you sow that one, do you dig that one?
What is the use of calling a man's farm his own, if every hour of the day an inspector—representing me—can walk in and push him about and tell him what to do. Why should I go on to Deputy Killilea's holding and tell him what to plant and sow and reap? Is it not his own? What good is it to him if he has not the right to throw me off it? What right have I got to go into the farms of any of the Deputies sitting on that side of the House and dictate to them what they are to do with their land? I will not do it; and so long as I am Minister for Agriculture there will be no compulsion on farmers that does not apply to everybody else.
All agree that, if war comes upon us, all of us have to surrender our liberties. I remember, when the last war began, we passed an Act in this House which left in the hands of the Government virtually the power to do anything they liked in respect of everybody. In that situation, you have to compel farmers, you may have to compel workers, you may have to order everybody to their post, and require, for the public safety, that each person will do his allotted task. But there is no reason why, if that is the proper course to pursue in war-time, you should release the whole rest of the community from that rigid regulation when the war is over and say: "The poor old clodhopper on the land, it would be as well to keep a grip on him because if we do not he will go astray or go wild."
Are we to claim that every Deputy in this House is some lazy old somachán that slept half the day and would not till his land and would not make anything out of it? What put the navy blue suits on the Deputies of this House? Who made doctors and lawyers and clergymen out of the farmers' sons? Was it not the ordinary, plain, simple, ignorant farmers—and they had no cigire or inspector running round saying: "You plough there, you sow there". Are we to assume that their sons have all become degenerates? I do not. I do not think their sons are one bit less than their fathers. I will stake my existence on that conviction and if it is necessary to take every farmer by the back of the neck and teach him his business, then kick me out, for I am not fit to do it, I do not want to do it and I never will.
I dealt with the pundit over there who ate the face off me for reducing the price of farmers' butter to 1/6 and then ate the face off me for putting him in the black market to get 3/6 a lb. for butter. The truth of it is that the woman who makes good farmers' butter now, if she can get a choice customer, will get 3/-; the woman who makes cartgrease will not get anything and I hope she will not. Let her go and grease the axle of the ass cart and not be trying to sell it to her neighbours as butter. The woman who makes middling butter may have some trouble in selling it, but—we got some of it inside recently—it is just the kind of stuff you can sit at the table with and put on a potato and put a bit of cabbage over it. She will easily get about 2/4 and is well paid. Let me say to the Deputy from Galway. Deputy Lahiffe, that if his neighbour has beautiful, first quality butter and no one to buy it, let him put it in the boot of his car and bring it up here next Tuesday and let him go around to two or three hotels and he will sell it as quick as lightning.
There was a lot of bad grass seeds in this country. I am not going into the whole salam about it, but all control of every sort, kind and description is coming off grass seeds soon. They can come in and go out, they can go up or go down. The man who produces good perennial or good Italian will get a good price for it and the man who tries to sell the sweepings of the loft will get nothing whatever except six months in gaol, and I think it is the best thing for him.
Oh, I must pluck a crow with Deputy Commons. He says he views the prospect of the mechanisation of agriculture with alarm, lest the introduction of machinery should displace men on the land. That is the most poisonous heresy that could creep in upon us, because if you accept that doctrine it will mean that the men who work upon the land are for ever to be the lowest grade of manual labourer, never allowed to have access to the instruments or methods which will enable them to take their place where they belong—at the very top of craftsmen in our country. I want to put on every farm in Ireland—whether through co-operative societies or individual ownership—those instruments which will enable the farm labourer of to-day to do the work of six farm labourers and to ensure that, having so equipped him, he will be proportionately paid.
I am much beholden to Deputy Moylan for describing me as an adolescent. As you pass the middle forties, you look affectionately at those who still regard you as an adolescent. Deputy Moylan regarded it as a fallacy to suggest that any old pastures should be preserved. That is a question about which I am not prepared to dogmatise, but I can tell you I was speaking to one of the greatest authorities on grass in Great Britain, a man whose name is nationally known, and I asked him that very question: "Could it be possible that there would be such pastures as we had in Meath, which were alleged to have been undisturbed for centuries and to have this extraordinary quality of finishing cattle?""Yes," he said, "it is undoubtedly true; there are certain areas in which that is true." And I think he mentioned Leicestershire. I said: "With all the progress in soil science, can you suggest to me why it is that you have a field on one side of the road which will finish a beast and a field on the far side which will not?""No," he said, "you cannot, not with precision. It appears to have something to do with the incidence and survival, owing to some soil constituent of the traditional indigenous grasses of the district. As yet it is hard to determine what will preserve that."
So long as that view obtains, God forbid that any fool in this country would go down and tell a Meath farmer to tear up something that may be of incalculable value, something that is utterly irreplaceable, and that is producing more food through the medium of grass owing to this purely chemical coincidence as it apparently does in parts of Leicestershire. Surely out of pure prejudice we are not going to destroy it. If we were it would be much the same as if some ignorant imbecile were to walk into the British Museum and smash the Portland vase because he did not like the look of it. The real explanation of that kind of sward can be satisfied only by breaking it up. So long as we do not know, do not let us smash it up and then deplore our action for the rest of our lives.
I would say to Deputy Lemass that 90 per cent. of the land of this country given to grass means rotational tillage. There is very little left in Ireland or anywhere else which, if left in permanent grass for a protracted period will not show a tendency to deteriorate and to carry stock. We know the reason why so little land was broken in many cases. It was because farmers would not walk behind two horses with a plough, and because west of the Shannon men would not go out and turn the fields with a loy. Thanks be to God the day is going when they will have to do that any longer. There are some Deputies who know what it means to face into two Irish roods of land with a loy, turn every inch of it and break it up. Work with a loy is work fit for a horse and not fit for a man. There has been a transition between these utterly primitive methods and the methods that we can give to them. We will have tillage to keep the people on the land and the means to do it in dignity and decency. So far as I am concerned, we will do all we can to give them the means. I am not going to ask them to get down in the gutter in order to gratify those who are standing on the ditch.
I thought it was extremely bad taste on the part of Deputy Moran to sneer and jeer at the occupants of our mental hospitals. Is there anything wrong in asking the resident medical surgeon of the mental hospital whether occupational therapy for patients might not in turn become an invaluable public user in propagating certain varieties of grass seeds which it is extremely difficult to get propagated commercially? The whole object of grass strains is to get a strain of grass that will be very leafy. The trouble about that leafy strain of grass is that when you try to propagate commercial seed the yield is so low that the cost of the seed is fantastic. It is such that the average farmer cannot afford to buy it. We have all over the country a number of mental hospitals with considerable tracts of land surrounding them. It is generally assumed that in occupational therapy the afflicted people will become interested in this as a regular routine. It is a thing to which they can readily adapt themselves as a desirable occupation. It seemed to me that if we could associate their therapeutic occupation with the feeling that they were making a very material contribution useful to their neighbours, on whom through no fault of their own they had become a charge, it would be a desirable thing. I do not think that is a silly thing nor an undignified thing to do. In that way we can steadily provide an annual supply of this seed which is so difficult to propagate. It will be a material contribution to the agriculture of the country which we cannot get in any other way. It will mean that those poor afflicted people will be doing something which is most valuable. If anybody thinks that is a foolish, undignified or improper suggestion, I do not agree with him.
Deputy Flynn spoke about the reconditioning of the Kerry mountain pastures. The question is who owns them. There are a lot of people who have grazing rights on these mountain pastures, but when you go to find a person who actually owns the mountain so that you can do reclamation work you find that the owner is somebody entirely different from the occupier. The same difficulty arises in Wicklow. If the users of the Kerry mountain pastures combine and approach my Department I will be delighted to use the resources of the farm improvements scheme. We shall try to work out a general plan for the reclamation and improvement of these mountain pastures so as to double, treble and quadruple their capacity for carrying sheep or cattle as the case may be.
I did say in this House that I could see a case for zoning the country, one part for Friesians and some other part for beef. When I came to put my mind down to it, I saw that it was daft. I said in this House, and I repeat it, that if you had an exclusively dairying country, or an exclusively liquid milk country, you ought to carry Friesians or Jerseys, but Ireland is not an exclusively dairying country. It is a very small country, and there is not room in it for setting neighbour against neighbour. If we do not all work together we will all perish together. Surely, we do not want a position where an individual in a parish can say: "So long as I can get my grab what matter about the rest of you." The result of that would be that the neighbourhood would go smash. I am convinced that this country must be regarded, agriculturally, as a unit, all working together. Otherwise we will all go burst together.
I can quite understand the viewpoint, particularly of a dairyman living in a dairying area, feeling: "If I could get the class of cattle where I knew that nine out of every ten cows would have a heavy milk yield," and saying: "I would be desperately tempted to choose that particular breed." What a lot of people forget is that 95 per cent. of the cattle in this country are Shorthorn cattle, and that about 5 or 10 per cent. belong to the fancy breeds. When you are dealing with fancy breeds, which are in a very small minority, the likelihood of your getting a good milker is much higher than if you take the whole cattle population and make a pick there. It is true to say that the Friesians, the Ayrshires, the Jerseys and the fancy breeds are better fed and better looked after by their owners than the average Shorthorn, but go up to Glasnevin and there is a herd of Shorthorn cattle there. They are not pedigree cattle. There is not a beast among them that was not bought on the Dublin market from common Shorthorn cows walked in there that anyone could buy, and the average yield of the herd is over 800 gallons a cow and most of them give 1,000 gallons. They are yours. They belong to the Irish people. If any Deputy in this House would like to go up there and have a look at them Professor Drew would be very glad to show them to you and to tell you the history of each cow. They were bought on the Dublin market in competition with all the dairy people and every one of them gives a yield of over 800 gallons, while many of them give a yield of 1,200 gallons. There is no special fancy feeding, and only when they go to about 1,500 gallons are they milked more than twice a day. Go up there and look at them.
I want to repeat my challenge. I will match, against six cows of any breed you care to name from any herd you care to pick, six of those ordinary Shorthorn cows bought on the Dublin market. Bring out six cows from any herd you choose to take and let them spend a full lactation in competition and I will pick six Shorthorn cows from the Glasnevin herd against any six cows in Ireland. Now can I say fairer than that?
The only thing is that they are 40 Shorthorns out of 1,000,000 cows, and they were well picked.
Did you go up and look at them?
I know them well.
The interesting thing is that they were not selected, and some of them look very qucer.
They were selected in the market by one of the best judges in the country.
Upon my word, he would want to be a mighty good judge to pick some of them. Some of them are the "quarest" looking things.... But there you are. If you know how you can do it. There is a difficulty that they are 20 cows out of 1,000,000, whereas if you picked 20 Friesians they would be 20 out of a 1,000, all of which were carefully picked in the first instance and your chance of getting 20 good cows is much higher than your chance of getting good Shorthorns. But damn it, we cannot run the country on the assumption that every one who keeps a cow or who buys a cow is not competent to do so.
Deputy Ben Maguire produced the astonishing theory that the flight from the land was due to the live-stock policy. God forbid that I would call the members of the Party beyond live stock, but it seems to me that the flight from the land took place from the time the Fianna Fáil policy was in operation. We were told that its result would be the return of the emigrant, but in fact the result is the disappearance of —is it?—20,000 per annum. Heaven forbid that at this hour of the night I should get contentious.
I am afraid of my life of mentioning anything that Deputy O'Reilly said, because if I compliment him he will think I am making fun of him, and if I criticise he will think I am insulting him, while all I want to do is to deal with him as I would deal with any Deputy. Deputy O'Reilly contended that the yield of our cattle had gone down through the Livestock Breeding Act, but he followed that by the record of the Milltown Cow Testing Association, which showed that the yield of our cattle was going up. That done, he passed on to the next topic. Is not that so, Deputy?
The Deputy's case was that the Live-stock Breeding Act had let the country down and that the yield of Shorthorn cows was going down in the country. Here is the cow testing association's record:—1940, 466 gallons; 1941, 474 gallons; 1942, 466 gallons; 1943, 455 gallons; 1944, 428 gallons; 1945, 466 gallons, and 1946, 491 gallons. That was at a time when we had no artificial manures, when the fertility of our land had notoriously gone down, when the difficulties of feeding cattle adequately must have been immensely increased to the people in the milch cow areas. Is not that a most striking advertisement of the Act? I am going to get that record framed and hung up in my office in the Department of Agriculture.
I hope it will be of great help to the Department. Perhaps I have not that oratorical ability of the Minister—I could not claim to have it— to put over the point I intended to put over. In putting that comparison of the cow testing association's figures I also gave the figures of the supply of milk to the Milltown Co-operative Creamery. I drew the attention of the Minister and of the House to the fact that the members of the Milltown Cow Testing Association are as nearly related as is humanly possible to the creamery area. I have not my notes as I did not expect this. I gave the figures of the supply of milk from 1940 to 1946. I pointed to the fact that the milk yield had gone up—will you oblige with the number of gallons?
Twenty-six gallons per cow.
And 4 lbs. per cow increase of butter fat. I pointed to that fact, but at the same time I pointed to the fact that the supply of milk to the creamery in that area— Milltown—had gone down by 60,286 gallons per year as from 1940 to 1946, with the intention of showing that even the cow testing association's figures are not an accurate reflex of the condition of milk supply. A point I want to elaborate is this——
I will ask the Deputy not to elaborate further now; we can discuss the matter at another time.
I am glad that the figures will be a help to the Department.
They are most valuable and to my mind constitute a very striking vindication of the Livestock Breeding Act where people can cooperate by running well-run cow testing associations.
Deputy James Collins spoke of carting stones seven or eight miles for field drainage. Surely to God if you are thinking of carting stones seven or eight miles, it would be worth your while to think of using cement tiles or three-inch pipes. If you have to cart stones seven or eight miles you would make drainage too expensive to be economical and I imagine that it would pay very well either to make or to purchase cement tiles for that purpose. He suggests that if we are going to end compulsion in wheat we should have compulsory nothing. He advocates shelter belts. I thoroughly agree, but I do not think we ought to pay our neighbours to put shelter belts on their own land. Why should they not put them down when they get the trees for nothing from the county councils? If a man is too lazy to dig a trench and put into it free trees, if the wind blows the thatch off his house the "divil" mend him.
I did not suggest compulsion. I think I suggested incentive rather than compulsion.
If he loses his thatch that is the best incentive he can have.
Deputy O'Rourke, in a most mild and seductive way, asked was not this the policy of Fianna Fáil that Deputy James Dillon, Minister for Agriculture, was preaching. He had not a word to say against it. After 27 hours of hullabalco during which I was everything short of a branded criminal, I invite my friends to make up their minds. Am I a villain tearing down the foundations of agriculture in Ireland? By the time we come to discuss the trade agreement will they oblige me by making up their minds. Are we carrying on the agreement they made in 1938 and no more, or have we sold the Irish people lock, stock and barrel into the hands of the base and brutal Saxon? They must make up their minds. It will have to be one or the other. It cannot be both.
Now I am coming to flax. I would be a foolish man coming from County Monaghan if I did not. I have abolished all control on scutching charges, because there is now scutching capacity in the country considerably in excess of the total acreage of flax. I want to make this announcement. If the scutch millers try to overcharge those farmers who grow flax I look to co-operative societies to operate flax scutching mills in order to see that the scutch millers do not get away with it. If they do exploit their customers this year, they can shut their mills up because people will get out of flax and I would advise them to get out of it. The Board of Trade in Great Britain heretofore has supplied the seed and bought the crop. They have announced this year that they have disinterested themselves in it, but that they invite the linen spinners in Northern Ireland to make a similar contract with our people. That contract could be settled in a word. If the linen spinners in Northern Ireland pay the same price, grade for grade, for our flax that they pay to people in Northern Ireland, we will grow flax and, if they do not, we will not.
Mr. Blaney
The Minister has brought up the question as to the controlled price of flax scutching. As I happen to come from one of the premier flax-growing counties——
I will not give way to the Deputy. Deputy Beegan upbraids me about the price of wool. Deputy Beegan, who voted for a prohibition on the export of wool and who voted for the Fellmongers Act in this House upbraids me with regard to the price of wool. Those two things, the resolution prohibiting the export of wool and the Fellmongers Act put the farmers of this country, bound hand and foot, into the power of as unscrupulous a ring of racketeers as ever held sway in this country.
A Deputy
Will you break it?
Yes, as soon as I can ever get round it.
The price here was higher than the world price.
Why did you prohibit the export?
Because we wanted the wool.
If the price was higher here who would send it out?
We wanted certain grades of wool.
The position was that the price in Ireland was higher than the price outside and therefore they prohibited the export for fear people would buy it dearer and sell it cheaper. Do you think we are all fools?
Is it not a fact that the price was higher?
If the Minister had his way they would be all running round in their pelts.
What is the price to-day?
You are asking that in a doubtful kind of way. You are afraid you may get an answer.
I am not.
I think I have come near to the end of the questions I have been asked. I wish Deputy Allen and Deputy Ó Briain would make up their minds. Deputy Allen says that the egg scheme is a delightful scheme and that they will do all they can to help. Deputy Ó Briain said: "Be careful. You may destroy us with that egg scheme. Look at it with great suspicion." I wish they would meet somewhere and make up their minds and then talk with the same voice. There is no use in one fellow getting up to praise it and the other fellow getting up to give it a stab in the back, because it is easy to kill it. If Fianna Fáil Deputies go round the country saying: "If you go in for eggs or hens you will be in a sorry plight this time two years," they can do a lot to damage it. But I do not give two fiddle-de-dees what they do because, with their help or without their help, we shall make a success of Deputy Smith's egg scheme and, if we make a success of it, let us give the devil his due. It was Deputy Smith made the agreement and, any loopholes he left in it, I filled them.
I think I have answered all the questions I was asked. I am not a bit afraid of the verdict of the country. Every blunderbuss you could find by way of argument, insult, violence and threat Fianna Fáil has launched against me in the last 27 hours and you did not knock a feather out of me. I am not one bit distressed. My confidence in the rectitude of the agricultural policy of this Government is not in the least shaken. My profound conviction that the events will justify the decisions we have taken and are now taking is unshaken.
My profound conviction that the farmers of the country will do more and do it better as free men than they would ever do it as inspector-ridden slaves is stronger now than ever it was, and I am quite content to let my reputation and the fate of the Government to which I belong stand or fall by the result of this test: is Fianna Fáil's policy of slavery or this Government's policy of freedom for the farmers the best for the Irish people in the long run?
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch John.
- McCann, John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- Maguire, Patrick J.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Níl
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Brennan, Joseph P.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Davin, William.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keane, Seán.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kinane, Patrick.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- Lehane, Patrick D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- Norton, William.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Martin.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Sheldon, William A. W.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.